The Search for the Sun Disc
by Mel88
Summary: Professional curiosity often takes Draco Malfoy to far-flung and exotic locations, most of which happen to be of archaeological interest to and actively excavated by Ministry employee and former flame, Hermione Granger. When an Egyptian dig yields an artefact of immeasurable power, Draco and Hermione are forced to partner once more, facing danger, betrayal, and a force that neither
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note** : This was written in 2016 for Round 7 of the Dramione Remix Fest.

First, my deepest thanks to my beta, eilonwy, for reminding me of the 25k word limit, dealing with the clumsy aftermath of my hurricane-esque edits, and giving me her time despite her several, and easily more important, real-life commitments. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.

Second, though no archive warnings apply to this fic, I do want to warn for violence, adult language, and secondary character death.

Third, my couple is Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood from the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Here's their history:

Doctor Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., more commonly known as Indy, is the world's hunkiest archaeologist. One day, he receives a commission from the Army: he must recover the legendary Ark of the Covenant, lest it fall into the hands of nefarious Nazi agents. The key to finding the Ark lies in Nepal with Marion Ravenwood, the daughter of Indy's late mentor. Marion, the world's booziest tavern owner, has something to prove. A two-year relationship with Indy - starting when she was a teenager and abruptly ending when Indy, ten years her senior, left to pursue his career in the United States - left Marion jilted and bitter. Now, a decade later, with her tavern burned to the ground and Nazis on their trail, Marion and Indy must work together to find the Ark and prevent Hitler from unleashing its terrible power upon the world.

 **Chapter One**

Draco Malfoy, blond hair tousled and silver eyes dozy from eleven blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep, ambled down Malfoy Manor's main staircase. His slippered feet scuffed along the thick carpet, and his silk robe, tied loosely across his hips, revealed a scandalous amount of pale chest. The lie-in alone would have inspired a stern look and a snappish comment from Narcissa; his additional state of dishabille would have had him spelled into uncomfortable, restrictive decency on sight.

Fortunately, Narcissa was in Greece for a month, lounging by the seaside and drowning her sorrows in olives and ouzo. And with Lucius barely halfway through his hefty Azkaban sentence for war crimes, Draco had the manor to himself.

Practically to himself.

"Rosie!"

The last remaining Malfoy house-elf cracked into existence atop his feet. Draco swore and wobbled around her, nearly colliding with a large, antique vase. The elf looked up at him - probably too much of him, considering how the hem of his robe swung about her ears - with delight.

"Yes, Master Draco?"

"Breakfast," he mumbled, cheeks slightly pinked. He pulled the robe's sash tight. "Day ro-"

The elf was gone before he got the word out. He shared an annoyed look with the suit of armor standing guard across the hall and shook his head. " _Elves_."

A full English affair with eggs, beans, bacon, tomatoes, and toast, accompanied by a carafe of pumpkin juice, awaited his arrival. Rosie had cracked the window as well, and though the spring air still carried winter's chill, the invigorating smell of dew and budding greenery more than made up for it. Soon, he would be able to spend his mornings on the veranda. He would spend the whole _day_ outdoors, in fact, liberally interspersing work with time on his broom. He stared out at the tree line, imagining it full and verdant against the bright blue sky, and smiled, tucking into his hot breakfast with gusto.

No doubt about it: Draco favored unemployment.

Or rather, he favored self-employment. He had tried the cubicle life for a few tense, post-war, post-Hogwarts years. The Ministry of Magic had felt like the right move at the time, a sign of his contrition and goodwill towards men. Given enough time, he might have been able to overcome the dirty looks from his coworkers. He might have been able to _befriend_ a few of them, what with his charisma, good looks, and disarming humility.

It was the disrespect that finished him. The fetching tea for morning meetings, inevitably screwing up the order, and having to paste a smile on when the recipients questioned his intelligence and commitment. The endless taking of lunch preferences, to be delivered promptly and usually without reimbursement. The busywork - sorting boxes of scrolls, running memos between the offices of those too lazy to charm them the traditional way, taking meeting minutes without ever receiving credit or a speck of gratitude for his trouble…

No, thank you. His skills were better utilized elsewhere, specifically for his own benefit and the benefit of his family. And he had done a respectable job of managing it, so far. With Lucius indisposed, Draco had taken over the family company. He had distanced it from the economically and ethically questionable enterprises of the past and directed it toward long-term, reputable investments that would carry his family - and its wealth - far into the future.

One such investment was print media, and after Draco finished his breakfast, he turned to the spread of papers Rosie had arranged. The local, magical paper - _Wiltshire Daily_ \- was on top, per usual. And so, at half past ten in the morning, stuffed and still be-robed, Draco began his workday.

By noon, he had either read or skimmed each of the three local papers and four magazines he owned. By one, he had reached his last for the day, his biggest investment, the crown jewel of his burgeoning media empire: the _Daily Prophet_.

According to the Azkaban guards, when Lucius had first learned of Draco's new investment, his threats of violence against his son had been so extreme that they had considered extending his sentence. Most who had heard that rumor supposed it to be a good joke, but Draco knew just how closely it skimmed the truth. Lucius had considered disownment, flaying, and beheading as equally satisfying ways to deal with Draco's _inexcusable lack of business sense_. Fortunately for them both, particularly Draco, Lucius could do no more about it than write angry letters.

Unfortunately, Lucius had been right. The _Prophet_ was a sinking ship, its readership having been damaged by years of muckraking journalism (not that Potter hadn't deserved some of it…) and its biased reporting during the war; according to his most recent sales report, _Prophet_ subscriptions had dropped below those for the _Quibbler_. Draco believed he could patch the _Prophet_ 's leaks and return it to its former glory, but it would be years before he saw a return on investment.

That had not been a surprise, however. Draco was not a careless man and had done his due diligence prior to moving forward with the acquisition. What his father and sundry business analysts failed to understand was that his decision - the answer to the oft-asked question, " _Why_ ?" - had not been motivated by money.

He forced himself to peruse the paper page by page, mentally noting what stories were being covered, what advertisements were being placed where, and the ratio of photographs to articles. At last, he reached the Wizarding Interest section, and his heart rate sped up a beat or two. His reason, his _why_ , occupied most of the section's front page, captured in a well-framed, black-and-white photo.

Hermione Granger had been photographed in profile. The sun set just behind and to the right, so that the light just kissed her small forehead, rounded cheekbones, pert nose, and stubborn chin. She wore ankle-high, rubber-soled boots that were made for trekking over uncertain terrain. Her form-fitting trousers, Draco knew, were khaki-colored and specially woven to breathe in the heat and resist moderate wear-and-tear. Her white, collared blouse was unbuttoned enough to reveal a modest "V" of unblemished skin, all the more tantalizing for what it hid. His mind skipped forward, dispatching with the next two buttons to reveal the gentle rise of her breasts and the small, brown freckle which made its home on her left breast's inner curve. A tight, thick braid forced her curly hair into submission. Every minute or so, it swung across her shoulders as she turned to shoot the camera an annoyed look.

The sight of her alone was enough to make Draco smile, but her expression - her look of infinite, inexhaustible exasperation, like she knew exactly who was responsible for such an intrusion and what would inevitably follow - made him laugh aloud.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the photo was the best part of the story. The headline, **MoM, DoM Finances Another Egyptian Dig** , was poorly conceived, with too many acronyms and zero grab for all the drama it implied. The article itself was mere fluff, meant less to educate the public on the potential value of the dig and more to cast light on the Ministry's questionable spending practices and the free hand it gave to departments staffed by recent war heroes. The annoyance Draco felt about the sensationalist tendencies of modern-day journalism was short-lived; as long as papers continued to sell, he could scarcely complain. And he himself was partway to blame: he had promised a bonus to any reporter who could find her. He glanced at the byline. Eric Casey was going to have a very pleasant week.

So was he, come to that. Spain and Australia had both been lovely vacations from his blissful norm. And he had always wanted to visit Egypt.

* * *

Draco blinked ash out of his eyes to better see the lanky, bespectacled form of Mitchell McVean. Originally from the United States, Mitchell had come to the United Kingdom in response to the influx of Dark artefacts that had appeared in the market after the war. It had been a heady, and therefore profitable, time as items were bought, sold, studied, catalogued, and stored. After a few years, however, the flood of artefacts became a trickle, and Mitchell had found himself unemployed, a man with a passion and no profession.

He had then offered his services to private collectors. Draco took the American on and persuaded - though Blaise Zabini still called it _bullied_ \- him into signing an exclusive contract. Draco set him up in a well-equipped workspace and kept him occupied with a constant flow of cursed jewels, jinxed shawls, hexed books, and generally mysterious bric-a-brac.

Mitchell's eyes widened comically at the sudden appearance of Draco's face in his Floo, and he nearly choked on his bite of sandwich.

"Mitchell," Draco said, ignoring the man's coughing fit. "How are you?"

"Cut the shit," Mitchell croaked, a long-fingered hand splayed across his heaving chest. He set down the sandwich and removed his glasses to wipe his streaming eyes. "I saw the article this morning."

"Glad to see you're keeping up with the morning paper."

"Not much choice in it, as the owl you sent won't stop screeching until I start reading."

Draco smiled. "Yes, he's a good owl. Anyway, we leave this evening."

"No, we don't," Mitchell said.

Draco lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. "No?"

"No," the American confirmed, gathering momentum and looking altogether too pleased with himself. "That mirror you gave me has a magical signature I don't understand, and the test I want to run can't be delayed."

"Oh, that's right!" Draco said, layering the sarcasm so thickly that his words seemed to land like physical weights. "How foolish of me. Here you are, living your dream, examining a private collection of Dark artefacts for a family who has been collecting them for years. A delay would certainly not be tolerated, unless, of course - and I'm sure you've considered this - said delay was _officially sanctioned_ by the family whose vault contents are not only occupying _forty of your waking hours per week_ , but also _providing you the means to live in a flat instead of a mud hut_."

Mitchell sagged against his desk, looking green. Draco rolled his eyes. In return for Mitchell's services, Draco required relatively little: a copy of all discoveries made, a substantial portion of the profits if Mitchell ever decided to publish his research, and the man's full cooperation with impromptu field excursions. Subtle reminders of one's contractual responsibilities were hardly a reason to fuss.

"I don't want to go," he muttered, thumbing a scrap of parchment on his desk. "I don't like fieldwork, and Ms. Granger is a bit-"

Draco cleared his throat; Mitchell shot a guilty glance into the hearth.

"A bit much to handle," he finished smoothly.

"That she is," Draco agreed, his tone warmed by an upwelling of fondness for the difficult witch. "Yet the facts are unchanged. She is one of the best researchers in the Ministry's employ, and you are the best researcher in _my_ employ. If we don't capitalize on opportunities like these, I don't acquire new artefacts, and you would have to acquire new sponsorship."

Mitchell's eyes narrowed, as if new sponsorship wasn't the worst alternative he had ever heard. Then, he frowned.

"You're threatening me," he half-asked, half-stated.

Draco was, of course, though he would never admit it. "I'm reminding you of the relationship between supply and demand."

Mitchell groaned and collapsed into his chair. He took another bite of sandwich and, with a vindictive glare at Draco, spoke around it. His voice was as thick as the revolting peanut butter he loved so much. "Fine," he said. "I'll go."

Draco repressed a shudder at the intentional lack of manners and said lightly, "Glad to hear you've come around on the subject. I'll arrange a Portkey. We depart at eight."

* * *

Egypt's dry, desert air hit Draco like a Bludger. Though it was dusk, sweat prickled on his forehead and across his chest, the temperature having not yet abated to the usual cool of April evenings. He pulled at his linen shirt. A weak puff of warm air ghosted across his chest, providing little relief. Mitchell grumbled behind him.

"Be glad it's not late June," Draco said, beginning the trek toward the Ministry's campsite.

"I'll be glad when this excursion is over."

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Draco admonished. "I thought that's what you Americans wanted: fortune and glory."

Mitchell stumbled in the shifting sand. "That's why I came to Britain," he deadpanned, steadying himself on Draco's proffered arm.

Draco shot him a grin. "I hope you see the error of your ways."

"I do," Mitchell said emphatically, his brown eyes wide and earnest. "I really, _really_ do."

"At least the walk is brief," said Draco, offering the American what silver lining he could. "Their campsite is ahead."

"Just over that rise," Mitchell confirmed. "I can see the fire from here."

"The fire," Draco repeated, vaguely aware there was something wrong with the observation. His footsteps slowed, then stopped as he looked toward the sunset. Flickers of yellow danced over the low, golden dune, and a thickening finger of dark grey smoke marred the delicate shading of the pink and orange sky. Draco looked at Mitchell, whose mouth hung agape as he stared.

A faint, panicked, "Shite!" broke the spell.

Draco dropped his pack and began to sprint. He crested the small hill and slid down its face toward the Ministry's campsite, which was more ablaze than any campsite had the right to be. Orange and yellow flames burned merrily in the fire pit at the camp's center, trailed across the sand, and raced up the side of a canvas tent. He stopped several feet away, the heat from the fire more punishing than that of the ambient air, and drew his wand.

" _Aguamenti maxima_ on three," he shouted to Mitchell, who skidded to a stop beside him. "One, two -"

A great howling overtook the sound of crackling flames, and Draco gasped as a wall of wind swept toward them. Too late to run, he could do no more than crouch, cover his head, and hope Mitchell did the same.

Suddenly, the wind veered toward the tent. Gathering speed, it began to twist, rotating and growing like a tornado. The whirlwind collided with the fire, and a great _whoosh_ sent him sprawling. A pillar of flame rose from the charred tent into the darkening sky, illuminating the campsite and the distant ruins beyond. With a noise like a rocket, it shot skyward and disappeared, as brief and glorious as a meteorite.

For several seconds, Draco heard nothing but his own heartbeat. Then, Mitchell groaned.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said, holding up his busted spectacles by a bent earpiece.

Draco ignored his colleague's moaning. He scrambled to his feet and looked around, still half-blinded by the vortex of flame. "Hermione? Hermione!"

"INTERNS!"

Draco calmed and lowered his wand; he would know that screech anywhere.

"What was -"

Draco waved a hand behind him, motioning Mitchell to stay down. "Quiet," he said. "Don't draw attention to yourself. Just enjoy it."

"Enjoy it?"

From the smoke and gloaming stalked Hermione, wand drawn, looking resplendently singed and apocalyptically angry. Draco stayed very still as her sharp amber eyes hunted for her victims. Her lips turned in a fierce scowl as she spotted them.

"Which. One of you. Was responsible. For _that_?" She drew closer with each word, her petite frame looming over a cowering group of young people, not one of whom was under five-foot eight. An accusing finger pointed at the tent's blackened remains punctuated her fury.

The interns flinched and squirmed, but Draco felt steady. Too often had he been on the receiving end of Hermione's rage; seeing it second hand was a treat.

The anticipatory moment of silence had stretched for too long. Hermione gestured again for emphasis and yelled, " _Well_?"

All three interns started babbling at once.

"Todd made the fire, but Jim was responsible for gathering -"

"Heather said she knew the charm, said she could cast it in her sle -"

"No one else was volunteering, and we were hungry, so I -"

"Enough!" Hermione snapped. The silence was immediate and complete. "The brightest young minds the Ministry has to offer. _That_ is how you were advertised to me. The brightest minds, who drink too much the night before archaeological work in the desert, puke the next morning, and don't have the sense to clean it up before their trusting chaperone steps in it."

A male intern with spiked blond hair, blue eyes, and sunburned skin looked down and away, like a chastised pet.

"The brightest minds, who mishandle potsherds in a pitiful and ineffectual attempt to impress a co-worker, and would have shattered the lot if it weren't for their sharp-sighted and magically adept employer."

Hermione's glare turned to the other young man, whose dark skin paled somewhat when he tried to meet her stern expression. He shifted his gaze to a point three feet to her left and instantly regained some of his color.

"The brightest minds," she continued, "who cannot cast a simple cooking fire without burning down their own bloody tent!"

The woman in the group - Heather, Draco surmised by process of elimination - blushed to the roots of her Weasley-red hair.

Hermione's blew out a frustrated breath, pinched the bridge of her nose, and closed her eyes. After composing herself, she looked back at her victims, who were all near tears. She studied each and, apparently satisfied that her message had been heard, nodded once.

"Right. Has anyone been injured?"

Each team member hesitantly shook his or her head. Draco nearly laughed. The interns may have been physically unharmed, but emotionally? He had to smile - the group would not soon forget that lecture.

"Good. Unfortunately, there's no undoing what's been done. The tent..." she glanced over to the spindly, charred frame, which collapsed into a heap under the weight of her stare. "The tent is irreparable," she said on a sigh, turning back to the interns. "And there's not enough room in mine for all four of us."

Draco cleared his throat and stepped forward, plastering on his most charming smile. Hermione's expression, which fell from determined to dismayed, put an additional spring in his step.

"I believe I can assist you with that," he said, sidling next to her. The interns stared at him with wide eyes. "Draco Malfoy," he said by way of introduction, nodding at them. "Businessman, billionaire -"

"Busybody," Hermione finished for him, arms crossed and hip cocked.

"Bringer of extra supplies," he corrected. "My associate, Mitchell -" He gestured back at his traveling companion, who gave a quiet, "Hello" to the group. "And I saw your expedition covered by the _Daily Prophet_ , and had an undeniable urge to join the search."

"You _saw_ it," Hermione said skeptically. "Randomly. With no prior knowledge. Just opened up the paper, and there it was, plastered across the Wizarding Interests section, just like the last time in Spain. And in Australia the time before that."

"Hit the Kneazle on the nose."

"And you don't think it's funny, don't even think to question the coincidence, that the papers _you_ own are the ones reporting these private, Ministry-sponsored digs?"

Draco lifted both brows in genuine-looking surprise. "Never crossed my mind. Though I do believe the words _private_ and _Ministry-sponsored_ are mutually exclusive. A keen journalist would have no problem monitoring the Ministry's pending archaeological applications."

"And _why_ would they be monitored, I wonder?" She narrowed her eyes at him, but he was not about to admit to incentivizing his employees to stalk her on his behalf. Especially before so many witnesses.

"Curiosity and an abiding interest in wizarding history, I imagine," was his blithe answer.

"Equivocate all you want, but _I_ know the truth. And you can't be here," she countered, chin lifting in defiance. "This isn't like Australia or Spain. You need a permit for this site, and you can't have had the time to get one. Ours took months to go through."

From his peripheral vision, he saw the interns exchange a panicked glance. He bit his tongue to keep from grinning.

"Mitchell?" Draco held his hand out, palm up, and waited. He kept his eyes on Hermione as Mitchell worked behind him, summoning their bags, locating their freshly-inked permit, and sending it zipping to Draco. It landed in his palm with a faint _slap_. With a flick of his wrist, it unfurled, curling up onto itself as it hit the ground.

"Pity yours took so long. Let me know next time. I have a friend at the Egyptian permit department who's always glad to be owed a favor."

Hermione's lips thinned in frustration. "Our permit is _exclusive_."

Draco's brows rose again, but in real surprise this time. "I wasn't aware they granted exclusive permits. This is public land, after all."

"Ours is a special circumstance," she said, her tone too forced to be casual.

Draco narrowed his eyes. Though her flaws were few, Hermione had always been a shite liar. However, now was not the time to probe that particular point.

Instead, he heaved a sigh. "I'm not looking to get on the Egyptian Ministry's bad side. What about you, Mitchell?"

"There are _several_ other things I'd rather do."

"Agreed. Well, you've bested us at last, Hermione. Show us your permits, and we'll leave at once."

Hermione's face lit with the most beautiful, victorious expression that Draco almost regretted what was about to happen.

"Our dig permit please, Jim," Hermione said, holding out her palm like Draco had done.

No movement. No sound.

Hermione narrowed her eyes and looked over to the interns. "Jim?"

The dark-skinned intern stepped forward, his broad shoulders awkwardly rounded. Fingers twining and untwining, he did not attempt to meet Hermione's eyes this time.

"The dig permit," he said in a small voice. "There's a… There's a, um, _problem_ with that."

Hermione's hand fell to her side. Her expression became rigid as she prepared to hear aloud what she had just silently realized.

Draco had to strain to hear Jim's reply: "It was in the tent."

Hermione took a trembling breath, and Jim backed away into the relatively safety of the intern herd.

"You can see this as good luck, really," Draco said, struggling to sound somber.

"Oh?" came Hermione's waspish reply. "How is this _good luck_?"

"The request for a copy of the dig permit must be made in writing. Depending on volume, it takes five business days for the request to process, and then the permit must be retrieved in person by the requestor," Mitchell recited. His accurate but unprompted reply earned a glare from Hermione.

"Precisely. Rather than try to explain a week's delay to your supervisor, you can work under _our_ permit." Draco shot Mitchell a chummy smile, which the chastised American did not return. "Considering your recent equipment mishap, we would be willing to share our supplies, as well."

"A joint company!" intern Heather exclaimed, as if the idea were original.

Draco smiled and offered her his hand. "What do you say, Granger?"

Pride was a large, spiny thing that puffed up when confronted and was difficult to swallow when bested. Draco knew firsthand what that was like, and so did not rush Hermione's decision. He knew what questions waged war in her mind. Accept help, or suffer a week's delay? Compromise, or return to the Ministry empty-handed? That was also why he did not worry. He knew, probably before she did, what her decision would be.

She took his hand and shook, her expression that of one who had made a losing deal with the devil and knew it. From her perspective, that might have be true, but to him, the arrangement fell firmly into the _second chance_ category. Or third chance, if he were being literal.

Hermione dropped his hand. She turned away from him, from the entire team, and stalked off toward the homey glow of her tent. His heart gave a sudden twinge, but he tamped down the urge to go after her. Hermione dealt with losing the way most self-respecting adults did: a good cry and a stiff drink. He would talk to her later, when she was cried out and soused. Then they could make some real progress.

In the meantime, however, he had a campsite to organize. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the scene. The interns, though slightly more relaxed now that Hermione had disappeared, were still grouped together like wary cattle. Mitchell stood off to the side, an open pack at his feet, rhythmically tapping the various broken parts of his glasses to find the correct repair sequence.

It wasn't much to work with, but it would have to do.

"Which of you three has the most practical field experience?" Draco asked, addressing the interns.

They shared looks, then blue-eyed Todd piped up, "We're all first timers, sir."

"Anyone ever go camping?"

Silence.

"Who here knows how to cook?"

After a brief hesitation, Todd stepped forward.

"You're with me," Draco said before the young man could change his mind. "I'll teach you how to build a proper fire, and then we'll start supper. You two are with Mitchell." The two parties exchanged glances, each set looking like they had gotten the raw end of the deal. "Set up the tent and scavenge whatever supplies you can from that heap." He inclined his head toward the ex-tent.

Once Draco had the fire crackling at a containable level and intern Todd was cooking something he probably wouldn't ruin, he helped Mitchell with the tent.

"You're sure about this?" Mitchell asked, ducking inside as Draco secured the tent's outer posts with his wand. "A single bathroom and hot water supply shared among four other people? A common sleeping area with no privacy? You have a enough difficulty bunking with _me_."

Draco pointed his wand at the bathroom, watching closely as the various tubes fit themselves together. "You don't actually think I'm staying with you lot, do you?"

Mitchell swiveled to shoot him a skeptical look and got boffed in the face with a pillow for his distraction. There was a snap of glasses breaking.

"Son of a -"

"Supper's on!" Todd shouted.

* * *

Todd exceeded everyone's expectations by preparing an edible meal. Draco piled four pieces of toast on a plate, scooped several servings of beans into a mug, and left the young group of four by the fire.

The distance between the firelight and the canvas flap door of Hermione's tent was maybe twenty yards, but walking it in the dark felt infinite. A million stars shone overhead, and the desert's vast, rolling dunes reminded him of the ocean's swells. He felt like a seafarer, navigating a calm gulf into unknown, potentially dangerous waters. An abundance of caution would not go amiss.

"Hermione?"

He waited for a reply. When there was none, he nudged his way into the tent, letting the flap fall closed behind him.

"Come to gloat?"

Hermione stood wearing a pair of athletic shorts that stopped mid-thigh and a baggy t-shirt. She had showered. The smell of Satsuma and vanilla wafted toward him as she moved, and her curls were stretched out into waves from the weight of the water. Awash as she was in the soft, yellow-gold glow of candlelight, Draco momentarily lost the capacity to speak. Instead, he gaped at her like someone under the Imperius Curse, happily lost in the nonsense of his own mind, awaiting instruction from the one who held the wand.

She cleared her throat and shifted her weight. "Is that for me?" She nodded at the plate and mug he forgot he carried.

"Yes." His voice cracked. He shook himself and tried again. "Yes." There - much manlier. "I thought you might be hungry."

"Starved," she admitted. She sat on a low chintz-patterned armchair. He set the plate, mug, and utensils onto the coffee table, then fetched her a glass of water from the kitchenette. Placing his pack on the floor, he settled on the loveseat nearest to her and watched her eat. She finished all but the last piece of toast and accompanying ration of beans, which she offered to him. He wolfed it down and removed the used dishes to the kitchenette. When he returned to his seat, he was surprised to see three fingers of whisky waiting for him in a glass tumbler. Hermione held a matching glass. The sparkling amber contents exactly matched the color and shine of her eyes.

He took the drink and leaned back into the cushions, trying not to stare. "About today," he started.

Hermione cut him off with a sharp gesture. "I suppose you think I owe you a thank you," she said with no small measure of bitterness.

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"And I do," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "Thank you. Really. I may not have wanted you here, but I don't know what I would've done if you weren't."

"Quite the recommendation," he deadpanned.

She shrugged a shoulder and finished her drink. "It's the best you're going to get, at present." She poured herself another small glass; he wondered, absently, how many she had had. "I suppose I should tell you a little of what we're doing here."

"I think that would be helpful, yes."

Hermione set her drink on the side table, leaned forward to shuffle through the parchments on the coffee table, and handed him a map. He set his drink down, too, and unfurled the scroll.

"The site is called Pa-maru-en-pa-aten, or Maru-Aten for short. It was constructed in the late eighteenth dynasty by the pharaoh Akhenaten." She paused for a moment, then asked: "How well do you remember Binns' Ancient Egyptian history?"

"Well enough to remember that one of Akhenaten's consorts was Nefertiti, and one of his sons was King Tutankhamun."

"Maru-Aten wasn't constructed for either of them," she said with a small smile. "Since it's not big or flashy, it was overlooked for a long time. The site was excavated by Muggles in 1921, but it hasn't been touched since."

"What did the Muggles find when they excavated?"

"Enough to understand the site's basic layout. It's three kilometers - a little under two miles - from the city of Akhetaten. You can see how it was built on the map - two adjacent structures, one slightly larger than the other. Each showed evidence of water features. The larger structure enclosed a lake, and the smaller one had a pond. There were gardens, trees, flower beds…" She trailed off, staring at the map, her eyes faraway. "I imagine it was beautiful. Peaceful."

"How did they get the water?" Draco asked, bringing her back to present. "It's certainly not here now."

"Until a dam was built in the 1970s, the Nile flooded annually. Ancient peoples built their lives and religions around it."

"And this place was no different."

Hermione's eyes met his briefly. "We think it's a little different," she hedged. "Do you remember anything about the Egyptian religion?"

Draco set down the map and picked up his drink. "Polytheism and no. I didn't realize I'd have to swallow an encyclopaedia before I came."

"What makes archaeology exciting is its _context_ ," she snarked at him. "How people lived, what they believed, what mattered to them and what didn't."

She paused for a moment, as if expecting an argument. When he remained silent, she continued. "The ancient Egyptians were polytheists who worshipped a shifting pantheon of gods and goddesses throughout their civilization's lifespan. You'll recognize the names - Isis, Horus, Osiris, Sekhmet - but the king of all the gods was Ra. Ra was almost always depicted as a man with a hawk's head standing beneath a sun disk.

"One pharaoh, named Amenhotep IV, thought that the worship of Ra was wrong. He had never seen a man with a hawk's head interfering in his life, for good or bad. What he did see, however," - she pointed skyward - "was the sun. The sun disc, Aten, an aspect of Ra, held the real power in the lives of Egyptians. Aten made the crops grow, gave the people life and livelihoods. Aten _created_. Amenhotep IV took the name Akhenaten and started what is considered one of the first ever attempts at monotheism: Atenism."

"Pa-maru-en-pa-aten…" Draco said, eyes wide.

"Translates to _The Viewing-Palace-of-the-Aten_."

"So it was a palace."

Another one-shouldered shrug. "Maybe. The royal family could have made it their residence, sure, but Maru-Aten was close enough to the main city of Akhetaten, _Horizon of the Aten_ ," she translated at Draco's loaded glance, "for easy travel between the two. _I_ think it was a temple. Just imagine it - Aten would shine down upon the lake, and the lake would reflect his greatness. Akhenaten and his priests could stand on the quay to hold services, or just to be closer to their god. The water could be used for sacrifices, or baptisms, or -"

Draco held out his hands, palms up. "Okay, I'm convinced: it's a temple. But there are plenty of temples around. What makes this one so unique?"

"The sun disc," she said, taking a sip of her drink and leaning back in her chair. "The Aten."

"The _god_?"

"The _relic_."

Draco lifted an eyebrow. "You think it's real?"

"The god?"

"The _relic_ ," he answered, patience wearing thin. He reached for her glass. She noticed, shot back the rest of the whisky, and handed it to him without protest. He grimaced and set it on the side table next to his.

"Why shouldn't it be?" she asked, dropping her head against the chair and staring at the tented roof. "Plenty of pictograms depict the Aten, both with and without its Ra counterpart. Other show the Aten being worshipped by pharoahs and slaves alike. There's at least a chance that the pictograms are more than mere metaphor."

"And what's why the Ministry is interested. They want to know if the Aten is real."

"Kneazle, nose. Also, it's haunted."

"The relic?"

She laughed, an unladylike snort through her nose. "The _site_."

Draco drew his brows down in a furrow. "The cathedral in Spain and the cave in Australia were supposed to be haunted, too."

Hermione nodded, her head sagging. "Plenty of haunted places," she said with a careless wave of her arm.

"Those weren't," he said, trailing off. Something about Maru-Aten being haunted felt wrong. Tacked on, like an afterthought, like an excess of justification given by an inexpert liar. Or the selling point needed to persuade a skeptical woman who, despite it being given by an experienced liar, had trouble spotting a deception.

Draco looked at Hermione and was startled to find her staring back at him. Her almond eyes were unfocused and half-closed with exhaustion, and his lips twitched into a wry smile at the sight. He stretched, arms wide and back arched, then rose from his seat on the couch.

"Come on," he said, working a hand beneath her arm and tugging her upwards.

She laughed again. This time, it was a low, careless sound that warmed him to his toes. She rose, rocking into him as she gained her balance. "Draco Malfoy, are you taking me to bed?"

He grinned down at her. "Wouldn't be the first time."

A playful swat at his chest preceded her shambling off toward her bedroom. He followed, eyeing the bed with a sense of anticipation, wondering… He glanced at her sideways and was surprised to find her studying him with a frank expression.

"No," she said at once. "I may have done some drinking, but I'm not _that_ drunk."

He feigned an expression of great insult, splaying a hand over his heart. "What sort of rogue do you take me for?"

She turned down the blankets and looked at him as she climbed in. "You know _exactly_ what sort of rogue I take you for."

He grinned; it was true enough. "But not one that sleeps on the couch when there's half a bed available, surely."

She raised a dark eyebrow. "Would you prefer the floor?"

They locked eyes for a long moment, neither flinching, until suddenly Hermione groaned. "Fine," she said, pulling back the blankets on the other side of the bed. He noticed, with a small measure of satisfaction, that she still slept on the right side. He had always preferred the left.

"But no funny business," she chided, even as she watched him unbutton his shirt. There was no mistaking the blush on her cheeks, which deepened when he stretched, solely for her benefit this time. She extinguished the candles before he could remove his trousers.

Warm and content, Draco began to drift off. On the edge of sleep, he thought he heard her speak. The voice was so hushed that he might have imagined it, or it might have come from his own exhausted brain.

"You shouldn't have left," the voice said.

Real or not, Draco could not let it have the last word. "You left first," he muttered, then gave over to unconsciousness.

* * *

 **End Note** : The majority of the history I gave on ancient Egypt is accurate (as far as Wikipedia knows). However, I did use artistic license to bend some of the facts for my story. For example, no one can say for sure why Amenhotep IV decided to break away from the accepted polytheistic religion and form monotheistic Atenism. I think my guess is a good one, but yours probably is, too. Also, it's equally likely that Maru-Aten was used as a palace or a temple, or maybe both. The temple worked better for what I needed, so that's the interpretation I used.

"Fortune and glory." is from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."

I used Wikipedia for all of my information on Maru-Aten, Aten, and Akhenaten.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Draco woke to an empty bed and the smell of cooking sausages. The first he had expected. A slightly uninhibited Hermione may not mind an old flame in her bed, but he doubted a sober Hermione who had full control of her faculties - physical, mental, emotional, or otherwise - would be half so understanding. The second was somewhat of a surprise, and he hoped that Todd had been responsible for it. With any luck, the young man would be singing Draco's praises to all and sundry, making a repeat performance of last night's sleeping arrangements possible without the aid of alcohol.

The hazy memory of their early days played in his mind's eye like an old film reel. How they had come together as coworkers, then friends, then lovers. The botched conversations which led to fights, which led to silences, which led to sudden and passionate forgiveness. The tiptoeing around which led to exposure, which led to their first hiatus, which ended in a shared belief that they could work, they could last, against all odds…

He sat up and put his feet to the floor, fueled by a renewed sense of determination. No more waffling about who deserved whom, wondering if what they had was real, or waiting for things to change on their own. It was time to cast or leave the duel. Draco would either get her back, or make them both miserable trying.

He showered and unpacked his bag. He kept a fresh pair of khaki trousers and an off-white linen shirt for the day, stowing the remainder of his clothes in the second drawer of the tent's small dresser. Setting the emptied pack before him, he considered his tools. Most underground sensing and excavating could be performed with his wand, which he loaded into his arm holster. He packed a sturdy travel quill and a roll of parchment for notes, as well as a coil of Engle's Extendable for measuring.

He resisted the urge to whoop when he exited the tent. Todd was turning sausages over a well-maintained fire, looking quite proud of himself, and - yes - extolling the virtues of a good teacher.

"Quite a job you've done, Todd," Draco said. He looked over to make sure his voice carried to where Hermione, who was overseeing the morning's inventory, stood. If she had heard Draco's charitable comment, she did not seem to care.

"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy!" said Todd, with eyes as wide as a puppy's. He offered up a plate piled high with meat. "There's plenty left!"

Draco grimaced politely at the young man's over-enthusiastic approach to breakfast and rolled a few sausages onto his plate. He picked a piece of buttered toast from the pile and tossed a quick, "Keep up the good work," over his shoulder as he went to join Mitchell at the other tent's entrance.

The American looked paler than usual, with deep bags ringing his eyes and a vague expression of confusion. Draco grinned and shoved the plate of meat beneath his nose.

"Morning, chap!" he all but shouted.

Mitchell winced. His mouth pressed into a thin line as he turned his face away from the sausages.

"Are all you Brits such assholes?"

"Yes," Draco said, taking a large bite. "Are all you Americans such novices when it comes to alcohol?"

His skin took on a green tinge at the mention of liquor. "I was trying to keep up."

"Did you pour your own drinks?"

Mitchell kept his head still. "Jim did."

"Ah," Draco's gaze drifted back over to the inventory, where Jim and Heather were packing bags and chatting companionably. "Three blokes to one woman - those aren't favorable odds."

Mitchell squinted up at him. "I'm not interested..."

"Would you have taken that chance?" Mitchell looked back down at the sandy ground, the contents of his pack arranged around him like supplicants around an altar.

"Pour your own drinks next time," Draco advised, and in a moment of generosity, added, "and get back to bed. You're watching the camp today."

Mitchell was either smart enough or desperate enough not to question it. With a mumbled, "Thanks," he shoved his gear and a considerable amount of sand into his pack and stumbled back into the tent to sleep it off.

* * *

Hermione seemed determined to do the five-minute walk to the site in three minutes flat. Draco kept pace with her easily.

"What's the hurry?" he asked.

A sideways glance, a pinking of her cheeks, and a high-pitched reply of, "What hurry?" gave him his answer and soured his good mood.

She was embarrassed, but Draco could only guess by what. The amount she had had to drink, or perhaps her inability to hold it? How natural it felt to tease and talk to each other again? How she had let him into her bed with a hesitation so slight it could have been labeled as perfunctory?

"If you don't remember what happened last night," he began in a low tone, "I was wonderful."

Her eyes snapped to him, then rolled in exaggerated annoyance as she looked away. "Nothing happened last night," she said, with not even a hint of amusement. "Like I said, I wasn't _that_ drunk."

Since humor would gain him no ground with her today, Draco focused on business instead.

"So... Maru-Aten is haunted?"

"Many ancient sites are."

"But not the previous two you visited."

"Correct," she confirmed. "Neither Spain nor Australia showed any evidence of hauntings."

"Despite the fact that they showed significant evidence of ritualized violence."

"Just because there's one doesn't mean the other has to follow. People die by violent means all the time, but England isn't overrun with ghosts. It's a rare choice, most often made by people who are afraid or unprepared for what's beyond."

"The bodies we uncovered in Spain and Australia - you think they were prepared to die?"

She shrugged. "It's hard to say. But I do know that some things are worth the sacrifice."

Draco wasn't sure he agreed. "At any rate, Mysteries had you chasing empty leads."

She shrugged again. "Some leads are."

"Why does Nott think this one is credible?"

Upon hearing her supervisor's name, Hermione missed a step. Draco kept his face mostly impassive as he bore her cautious glance. Theodore Nott had been a factor in his and Hermione's second falling out, and Nott's interest - or lack thereof - in Hermione was still not resolved to Draco's satisfaction.

"He thought the leads for Spain and Australia were credible, too," Hermione hedged.

It was a neat evasion, but Draco knew better than to lose focus. "You don't know." Color rose to her cheeks, indicating that she _knew_ she didn't know, and that it bothered her. "Interesting, isn't it? Since you started in Mysteries two years ago, you've been sent on two excursions. This year's just started, and you're already on your third."

"I _knew_ you were stalking me."

He ignored her.

"Interesting, too, that all three sites you've been sent to were allegedly haunted. I assume you were looking for artefacts then, as well? Maybe something disc-shaped, like the Aten?"

"The Department of Mysteries considers itself a guardian of wizarding history. As ancient history is understood almost exclusively through the physical items a civilization has left behind, it follows that the Department of Mysteries is interested in artefacts."

Draco sneered at her boilerplate; it seemed humor and honest curiosity were equally useless against her tetchy mood. "Is that verbatim from the employee handbook, or are you paraphrasing?"

She ignored him.

"An excursion is valuable for the knowledge we gain, regardless of how exciting the physical evidence is or isn't. The Ministry hunts for _history_ ," she said firmly, "not treasure."

"Does Nott have you so brainwashed? I know you can see the pattern, but could you really be blind as to what it means? This year, you've been sent out early and often. You've been fed the same lines for each site. The sites you've visited have been similar to one another. _Why_ , Hermione? Why could this be?" He paused for dramatic effect. "Because Nott's looking for something. Something specific. He hasn't found it yet, he's getting desperate, but he doesn't want to bring you, or anyone else, in on the story because he doesn't want you asking questions that he can't or, more likely, doesn't want to answer."

Hermione stopped, and Draco stopped with her.

"Now," he said, dropping his voice and stepping closer, "I'm prompted to ask _why_. Why aren't you asking the difficult questions? Why aren't you holding his feet to the bloody fire like you would anyone else who lied to you? Are you being intentionally obtuse, or are you still naive enough to believe everything you're told?"

Her eyes shot sparks at him. "I'm not naive," she said in a low, angry hiss, "and I'm not obtuse. I've noticed similarities, the same ones you _oh-so-helpfully_ pointed out to me."

Draco felt a rush of triumph, but Hermione kept going before he could crow about it.

"But unlike you, I'm not jumping to conclusions. Two points don't make a pattern, they make _potential_. Whatever we find at Maru-Aten will either confirm my - and your - suspicions, or dispel them as unsubstantiated paranoia. Theo has been very," she paused for a moment, searching for the correct word, " _insistent_ about the success of this dig."

Draco's spine stiffened. "Oh?"

"He's been distracted, focused on something other than the projects we're supposed to be pursuing, and I think it has to do with these digs. Whatever he's chasing - a story, a ghost, an artefact - it needs to be found. I need to refocus him."

"Refocus him back on you," Draco guessed in a moment of jealous petulance.

The retort seemed to suck the air from Hermione's lungs. She gaped at him, and after a moment, shut her mouth with an audible click. She brushed past him, muttering dark epithets of which Draco caught mere snippets: _arsehole_ , _typical_ , and _bloody male ego_ featured prominently.

"We're here!" she shouted back to the interns, and indeed they were. Maru-Aten's ruins stretched out before him, looking just as they did on the map. Low, cracked stones outlined the temple's two adjacent perimeters, as well as several rectangular structures contained within. Two shallow depressions suggested the presence of once substantial bodies of water.

"Jim, you're with Todd. Set up at the pond, lay out your grid, and begin your below-ground sensing. Let me know when you've finished. I'll check your maps and let you know where else to dig. Heather, you're with me today. We'll do the same thing by the quay."

Jim and Todd split off from the group, tossing their packs a few feet from their assigned survey area. Jim used his wand to set mid-air grid lines over the area while Todd unrolled a large sheet of parchment, weighing down each corner with a pile of sand.

Draco followed Hermione and Heather to the lake, standing back while Heather laid out the grid.

"We're not finished," Draco said as Hermione rolled out her parchment.

"You're mistaken. We most certainly are."

"I don't care if you're with Nott."

Hermione let out a laugh like a shout. "The lies you tell, Draco Malfoy…" She shook her head, her eyes bouncing from the grid to her map. She copied the grid pattern onto it, labeled the cells with Roman numerals, and then set the same pattern of numerals hovering over the sections. "You can start scanning, Heather!"

"Okay!"

A shaded picture of the area below the square labeled "I" began to appear on the parchment. "A little slower," Hermione called out. The picture's resolution tightened.

"I know what you're doing," she said to Draco, keeping her eyes on the map. "Purchasing the _Prophet_ , following me on these digs… But here's a headline for you, Draco: _you_ left _me_. _You_ pulled away when I transferred to the Department of Mysteries. _You_ quit the Ministry without telling me, without talking to me about it at all. _You_ let your company take over your life, and mine in the process."

"Remind me again," Draco said, tapping his chin in mockery of deep thought. "Who broke up with whom?"

"You ended it; I just made it official."

"Now you're getting nasty."

"Moving onto section two!" cried Heather. Hermione's eyes jumped to the next square.

"Now I'm being honest," Hermione corrected. "You should try it."

"And where was this honesty a minute ago, when you were _ever-so-painstakingly_ detailing our collapse?" Draco hissed, at last earning a side-eyed look from her. "Convenient how you remembered all of _my_ shortcomings and neglected your own. Your unflagging optimism about my dead-end position at the Ministry."

"Optimism isn't a shortcoming."

"Your attitude when I told you that I'd be taking over for my father. How you thought it was below me, that it was the easy way out."

"I never said -"

"You never had to," he snapped. "And all those late-night _trainings_ with Nott."

" _Enough_ ," Hermione seethed. Sparks shot from the tip of her wand. A few landed on the parchment, eating back-ringed holes down to the sand. "There was _nothing_ going on between me and Theo when you and I were together, there's _nothing_ going on between us now, and even if there were, it would be none of your damn business. It's always been your insecurity, your lack of faith in me, in _us_ , that's caused -"

" _My_ lack of faith? You never -"

"Section three!"

Heather's cheery shout interrupted their whispered argument and pulled Hermione's attention back to the map.

"We're not doing this," she announced, her voice edged with impatience and years of suppressed frustration. "This is neither the time nor the place for personal conversations. I've told you all I know about the expedition, so there's no need for further discussion. Now I don't know what your plan is, but mine is to get to work."

Draco scowled at the obvious dismissal, but could not resist a final barb. " _My_ plan to find that artefact before you do."

"That's fine," she shot right back, "as long as you don't do it near me."

He stalked away, his hands clenched into tight fists. Winning her back was clearly going nowhere, but making them both miserable was turning out to be a roaring success.

* * *

After walking the site a few times, Draco's anger had burned away, allowing the formulation of a plan. In order to ruin Hermione's, and by extensions Nott's, day, he would indeed find the artefact first. And he had an advantage: he knew where to look.

Draco meandered noncommittally to the structure opposite the quay, which he suspected was a common-use temple. Throughout time, people had looked to a greater power for everyday guidance. Why would the ancients do any different? A temple would also be an ideal storage location for a ritualized object: accessible to those who had the means and ability, and an unseen source of comfort for temple visitors.

Good archaeological practice dictated that he lay out a grid and begin subsurface scanning, but when he glanced behind him and saw Hermione and her team still diligently scanning, he decided against. Hermione seemed to be ignoring him, but she had made it clear that she would not allow her personal feelings to interfere with her professional success. If she suspected he had found something, she wouldn't hesitate to investigate. Best to keep his observations casual for now.

Resisting the urge to take a second over-the-shoulder glance, Draco walked through a stoneless space facing the lake and the quay. He looked about him, and it was as if he had been transported. He could imagine how tall the mortared limestone walls had stood, how their pale surfaces had been carved with hieroglyphs and painted with whites, umbers, blacks, blues, and greens, where the holy texts of fragile papyrus had rested. Supplicants would have gathered before the quartz altar, an enormous slab of which remained _in situ_ , to pray and reflect.

He approached the pale stone and passed his wand over it, removing a fine layer of sand to reveal delicate veins of pale yellow and orange beneath. Had he been an ancient priest, this is where he would have kept his sacred object. Unthinking, Draco laid his hand upon the smooth surface. He gasped as his vision blanked.

A great expanse of emptiness stretched out before him, vaster than any ocean. At its center was a pinprick of pure, white light. The pinprick disappeared, and an instant later, an explosion of light and color hurled toward him. Arcs of purple, pink, and blue jettisoned out from the center, connected by web-like tendrils of pearl white, bright yellow, and rich gold. He wrenched his hand away and stumbled backwards, colliding with the edge of the temple's door.

"Draco!"

Hermione shouted his name from across the dry lakebed. Chest heaving, he turned to see her and the three interns sprinting toward him, wands drawn. Panic jolted through him, and he turned back toward the temple, expecting to see floating stone or a portal to another world. But nothing had changed - the altar was both stationary and ordinary.

"What happened?" Hermione asked, short breaths punctuating her words. "We heard you scream."

"I didn't…" He looked between Hermione and the interns. Each of them wore a similar expression of concern and fear. He looked down at his hand, then back at the altar, remembering the cosmic burst of color. "I don't think I did."

Hermione's brow furrowed, and she looked past him. "Jim, run back and get our bags. Todd, set a grid. Heather, start scanning. Do _not_ touch the altar. Draco, come with me."

The interns jumped to work at once. Draco's confusion immobilized him until Hermione took his hand. The animosity of thirty minutes ago was forgotten. His uncertainty settled, her presence grounding him in a way his rational mind could not. She led him from the temple's interior to a crumbling outdoor wall. He leaned against it, the sun-warmed bricks spreading heat across his shoulders and upper back.

"What did you see?" she asked. Her eyes burned with quiet intensity, and in the glittering sunlight, he saw jets of gold and yellow streaking through the amber.

Draco's stomach turned. He sent a loaded glance over her shoulder as the distinctive swish of hurried footsteps through sand drew closer. Jim threw the packs onto the ground, and they landed with muffled thumps. The man himself rounded the corner just moments later, his square face eager and shining with sweat.

"What should I -"

"Begin scanning with Heather," Hermione said at once. "I want the entire temple mapped. Don't rush it. We need as much detail as we can get."

"On it," said Jim, and Draco heard him relay the instructions to his teammates.

Once he was sure they were working, he met Hermione's eyes, which had mercifully lost some of their glitter. Instead, they shone with concern.

"I'm fine," he said before she could ask. "Just a bit shaken. I wasn't aware that I'd screamed."

"I thought you'd been hurt," she confessed.

"I don't know what happened. I cleared off the altar with my wand, and when I touched it, I saw nothing, just…" He struggled to find the right words. "Not just darkness, or blackness, but _nothing_. And then there was this burst of light, and all these colors… It was like…" He shook his head. "Like a supernova."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Like a galaxy being born?"

He nodded, though her assessment was not entirely accurate. The mass of light and color, the power contained within the radiating burst, the way everything had seemed to hurtle toward him but not move at all, as if whatever distance the light had to cross was more massive than he could comprehend… It was a ludicrous thought, but Draco felt like he had seen the entire _universe_ being born.

"Whatever it was," he said, "I think it came from the relic, or artefact, or whatever Nott is looking for." He leaned his head against the stone and shut his eyes, grateful for its stability as the rest of the earth felt like it was shifting beneath him. "I think it's here."

"Finished!" Jim popped around the corner, and Draco felt some of the previous stability leave him as Hermione dropped his hand and walked toward the temple's entrance. Reluctantly, Draco followed.

"What did you find?" she asked.

"We're not sure," Todd said, gesturing to the map. Draco leaned over Hermione's shoulder for a closer look. "There's a cavity beneath the altar. It extends and slopes downward, like a passage. The rest of the temple is built on several feet of solid stone, but below it there's a space, and then another mass of, well, stone, we think," Todd continued, looking at his peers for reassurance.

Draco narrowed his eyes at the region Todd had referenced. Upon first glance, the shaded area resembled stone, but upon closer inspection, it was far too uniform. Only one substance would appear on a subsurface scan like that.

"Water," Hermione whispered. "It's water. An underground lake, probably fed by the Nile."

"Was it always there, or did the space flood over time?"

Hermione glanced at Heather, then looked back at the scan. "I'm not sure, though I'd guess flooded. I can't imagine why the temple's inhabitants would build a passage from their temple to an underground lake when there's an aboveground one just outside."

"And what happened to him?" Jim asked.

Hermione glanced between Draco and the altar, then scanned their surroundings. "Latent magical energy, I think. If this structure was used as a temple, and if it does house an artefact, then the space is accustomed to regular magical use. But it's been untouched since the 1920s. The magical energy built and built with no outlet until Draco touched it."

She reached out and touched the smooth stone before Draco could stop her. She raised her eyebrows at his panic-stricken expression.

"Nothing," she said, keeping her steady gaze on Draco. "The magic was released. It will be decades until it builds up to such a level again. It's not uncommon at ancient magical sites," she said, turning to the interns. "That's why we survey first."

A beat of silence hung heavy as the interns absorbed their lesson. Then, Todd asked, "How do we access it?"

Hermione pursed her lips and stared at the altar. "Might as well start with the basics."

With a practised swish-and-flick, the stone altar shifted and rose several inches off the ground. Carefully, she maneuvered it backwards, revealing the passage entrance. Cut from the same pale limestone as the walls, Draco estimated the area of the squared-off hole at no more than two cubic feet - big enough for one medium-sized person. The drop looked intimidating, but not dangerous; Draco guessed that he, the tallest of the group at nearly six-foot, would be able to stand upright. The ambient light bent in such a way as to suggest a steep decline. Cold, stale air seeped up from the hole and lingered around their ankles.

"That was easy," Heather remarked with wide eyes.

"Too easy?" Jim asked, looking cautious.

"I'm going down," Hermione announced, to the surprise of no one.

"Me, too," Draco said, weathering a surprised and somewhat relieved look from Hermione. "I couldn't very well let you go alone," he snapped.

"I'll go, too," Todd added.

Hermione considered Todd for a moment. Draco could tell she was on the verge of refusing him.

He, apparently, could see it, too. "You've seen my transcripts," Todd said. "You know I'm capable. What you don't know is that I volunteered for this expedition so I could live history. Please, Ms. Granger - _let me live it_."

It was an impressive little speech, and Draco thought he saw the hints of a smile tugging at the corners of Hermione's mouth.

"Very well," she said. "Jim and Heather, survey the area around the temple while we're gone. If you find anything significant, send a Patronus. We'll do the same. Todd, is there anything you need from your pack?"

As Todd looked through his pack, Draco did the same. On a whim, he placed the Engle's Extendable in his pocket. The ability to accurately measure length or depth might be useful in an underground lake, and it was hardly a burden to carry if he didn't need it.

* * *

The heels of Todd's boots flashed in and out of Draco's wandlight as they journeyed into the earth. Desert climate thoroughly abandoned, the temperature grew colder and wetter. Water trickled down the tunnel's rough hewn sides, shining like platinum veins against the now dark stone. After two minutes of walking, the decline began to plateau. After five, the path widened and ended at the shore of the underground lake.

Hermione threw an orb of light from her wand, which attached to the cavern's low ceiling. The water's surface showed nary a ripple from the the breeze caused by its passage. The water seemed to swallow up the orb's pale light, dragging it down into the depths. Draco was reminded of Hogwarts' Black Lake, with one key difference: for all the dangers it held, the Black Lake was never so eerily still.

"Where is it?" Todd asked, holding his wand aloft to cast a greater circle of light around them. "Should we summon it?"

Hermione hunched to inspect the water, getting close but not touching it. "That won't work."

"How do you know?" Draco asked.

She stood and stared at the middle of the lake with wary eyes. "I just do."

It was not a satisfying answer, but Draco did not pursue the question. "If the object is here, how will we get to it?"

"Look at these." Todd directed his wand at the near wall, illuminating a series of hieroglyphs.

Hermione's fingers hovered over them, tracing the lines in the air. "They're so worn," she murmured. "I can't read them. But maybe… I think this one means _light_ or _sun_. And here - it looks like Ra, but he's miniscule compared to the Aten. I recognize the glyph for water. There's a snake… no, two. They're not associated with anything here, which is unusual, and this one symbolizes man, I think. He's headless. I'm not sure if that's intentional, or because of the erosion." She looked back at them. "That's all I can make out."

"Snakes?" Todd repeated, fear plain in his voice. "Why'd it have to be snakes?"

"That's not very encouraging," Draco said. Struck by a sudden thought, he looked down at his hands and remembered the vision from the altar. Touching it after Merlin knew how many years was a matter of chance, and any confluence of time, emotion, and energy could have activated its latent magic. Maybe the lake was the same way.

He squatted at the lake's edge, the toes of his boots at the edge of the water. He took a deep breath, held out his hand palm down, and lowered it onto the water's frigid surface. A hazy, yellow glow colored the water below his palm.

Hermione gasped. "Draco, don't - oh…"

The glow spread across the lake, the dark walls and ceiling lighting to a warm, golden stone that sparkled with flakes of quartz. A rumbling so deep Draco could feel it in his lungs moved through the chamber, and little waves rippled out from the lake's center. They rebounded back on themselves, building until swells splashed against the chamber's sides and against the shore, soaking their shoes and calves. A low stone platform rose from the center of the lake and stopped with a resonating _boom_. The vibrating stopped, the waves calmed, and Draco hesitantly removed his hand from the water.

"How did you do that?" Hermione's voice was faint with surprise.

"Latent magical energy," he answered, half-joking. He ignored her frown and stood, wiping his hand dry on the thigh of his trousers.

Todd stepped toward the water, squinting at the pillar. "Can either of you see what's on there?"

Hermione answered first. "No, but _something_ is."

Draco grabbed her arm and held her fast. "This is a bad idea, Hermione," he said, suddenly certain and not at all sure why. "We don't know what that thing is, or what it could do."

"But Theo -"

"Fuck _Theo_. What about _you_? How do you think Nott will feel when you don't come back at all?"

She tugged away from him. "Let's not exaggerate."

A splash drew their attention from the argument and toward Todd, who was knee-deep in golden water.

"Todd!" Hermione shouted. She dodged Draco's attempt to restrain her and leapt into the water after the rogue intern.

"If this is such a bad idea, maybe we should hurry up and get it done instead of bicker," Todd said over his shoulder. He sloshed forward, Hermione struggling to catch up to his longer stride. She caught hold of his shirt once he was within reach, and shoved herself in front of him.

Hermione and Todd slogged through waist-deep water while Draco paced the shoreline, cursing misplaced nobility, foolhardy courage, and Godric- _bloody_ -Gryffindor for thinking either was valuable enough to esteem. They paused when they reached the pillar, taking a moment to assess whatever lay before them. Draco could not hear their muted conversation, but it resulted in Todd raising his wand. Draco did the same, his fingers tightening as Hermione stepped out of the water and onto the platform's lowest step. She stowed her wand and reached up. She hesitated a moment, her pale hands hovering over the pillar like a hawk over a field mouse, and struck with precision and efficiency.

Absolute stillness descended over the cavern. Draco could not see her face, but Hermione's body language screamed anticipation, her shoulders and back tense and ready for movement. Todd's wand remained raised, as did Draco's, though the chances of him hitting anything from this far away were slim.

Several seconds passed with no movement. Slowly, Hermione's shoulders relaxed and she turned toward them. In her hands was a dark object the approximate size and shape of a dinner plate.

Todd's voice, shaky with relief, floated over the water. "That could've gone worse." Hermione smiled at him, and Draco let out a quiet laugh as the room's tension dissipated. Todd reached up toward Hermione as she looked to step down from the platform, his hands hovering below her elbow, ready to catch her.

As soon as she splashed into the water, the golden haze disappeared, plunging the cavern into utter darkness. A terrible, bone-rattling roar shook the ground beneath their feet.

Draco's heart dropped into his stomach.

"Run!" Hermione shouted, and he heard them start to move through the water, care and caution abandoned.

Draco ran, too, falling to his knees at the waterline and slapping his palm down, willing the calm, golden glow to return. There was no glow, not even a shimmer, and so Draco rocketed to his feet and tossed a glowing orb of light toward the cavern ceiling. His spell, strong with desperation, produced only a dim, flickering light that was barely enough to see by.

What he did see left him cold. The water had risen, so silent and swift that Draco just noticed that he stood knee-deep. Hermione was submerged up to her shoulders. She held the disc above her head, and her chin tilted up to keep the water from her nose and eyes. Todd, the water at his chest, pressed against her back, guiding her forward. The veins in his forehead bulged, as if he strained against a riptide.

Then Draco felt it. A tugging at his trousers, a slip of his thick-soled, dragon-hide boots against sloping lake bottom, and a caress of something sinuous upon his ankle. His skin crawled, and he danced backward, away from the sensation. Bubbles drifted up from the depths, popping on the choppy surface and releasing a faint smell of rot.

Something was in the water.

Panic overtook him. Eyes wide, he reached toward them and screamed encouragement he did not feel. "Almost there! Just a little farther!"

Hermione, the water up to her chin, coughed and spluttered. Her eyes rolled forward, grazing the shore, locking onto Draco. He felt her terror and shifted forward, stretching out toward her while trying to keep himself planted on the slick lake bottom, gritting his teeth as his muscles strained.

"We can make it!" Todd shouted, his eyes closed in concentration.

Then, Todd was gone. Without warning, without sound, as if he had never existed at all.

Hermione rocked backward. Eyes still locked, her terror shifted to understanding, then shifted to focus. She hurled her arms forward even as her body drifted back, unsupported and at the mercy of the current. The object flew like a clumsy discus, clanging once as it struck stone, but Draco didn't hear it.

He was losing her.

Hermione was going to die.

A feeling more powerful than instinct took hold of his limbs. Without conscious thought, Draco drew Engle's Extendable from his pocket and, with a flick of his wrist, unfurled it. The pale measuring ribbon transfigured as it flew out over the water and rent the air with a sharp _crack_ as it snapped to full length. He pulled his arm back, eyes locked on the place where Hermione's head, upper arm, and forearm had disappeared beneath the dark surface. He snapped his arm forward, aiming for her delicate wrist.

Leather slapped skin, and Draco yelled in wordless joy as Hermione's hand grabbed the whip's thickening coil. He hurled himself backward, and she gasped as her head broke the surface. He continued to pull, hauling her from the current's dragging fingers with every ounce of strength he could muster, and redoubling the effort when the cavern rang with another, screeching roar.

Hermione's free hand disappeared beneath the water and reappeared with her wand. She pointed it behind her and yelled, " _Expulso_!"

The tension on the whip went slack as Hermione barreled forward, water streaming out behind her like shattered glass. She hit the shore with a thud and a _whuff_ of forcefully expelled air, tumbling until she crashed into the cavern wall.

Draco scrambled toward her, throwing aside the whip to wipe her plastered hair away from her nose and mouth.

"Hermione?" He shook her, slapped at her face. "Shite. _Ennervate_. _Ennervate_!"

She gasped, lurching into a sitting position and into his arms.

"You're okay," he whispered, braiding his fingers through the soaked hair.

After a too-brief moment, she pushed away from him. He let her have the distance, and was rewarded with her gentle hands upon his face, searching for injury.

"Are you hurt?"

"No," he answered, stroking her hair. "I'm fine."

She craned her head to look past him. "Where's Todd?"

His body tensed, and she felt it. Her eyes widened in disbelief, and she pushed herself away once more, lurching to her feet and stumbling toward the receding water.

"Todd!" Her shout echoed across the water, off the cavern's low ceiling, and turned into a strange susurrus. Bubbles drifted up from the water once again. Draco grabbed Hermione's arm and dragged her away from the lake as a smooth, dark, and curved hump broke the surface. The water rippled as the snake-like creature descended, disappearing with a flick of its pointed tail.

Hermione's knees buckled. Draco, unprepared for her weight, staggered as he caught her. She stared at the water. Her chin trembled and her eyes shone with tears. Draco almost choked back his words, but there was no mercy in protecting her from the truth.

"We need to go."

"We can't. Todd -"

"Todd's gone. Jim and Heather aren't. Mitchell isn't. _We_ aren't."

She loosed a gasping sob, and he held her, his wary eyes never leaving the lake's onyx surface. His skin prickled as he thought he saw it shudder. Wrapping an arm around her waist, Draco supported her on the short walk back to the tunnel. He ushered her in first and, once satisfied that she wouldn't turn back, he did.

Draco edged over to where the hurled disc had landed. Its dark face shimmered like oil in the flickering light of his spelled orb. He felt nauseated by it, repulsed, and the idea of picking it up made bile surge up his throat. He swallowed it back down, coughing to alleviate the burning sensation, and steeled himself to the task. Once he left this cave, he would never return to it, so damned if he was going to leave empty handed.

With a deep breath, he grabbed it. The disc was heavier than it should have been for its size, as if gravity worked on it twice as hard. The feel of it in his hands caused gooseflesh to rise over his skin. It tingled against his fingers, tiny pinpricks crawling over his palms like one million microscopic spiders.

He dropped it in surprise, and it landed with one solid _clang_. It did not bounce or shimmy, instead falling as if pulled by a subterranean magnet.

Shaking the feeling from his hand, Draco stripped off his shirt. Covering his fingers and palms, he ignored a second wave of nausea and once more plucked the disc from the ground. The shirt did not extinguish the burning-stinging feel of it, but muted it enough to handle. Draco wound the shirt's ends and tied them off, creating a sling.

Draco retrieved the whip next. He looped it so that it stayed coiled, then slipped it over his head, wearing it across his bare chest like a bandolier. He was not going to question the karmic twist which had prompted him to pocket the Extendable, nor what unknowable, subconscious catalyst had inspired his magic to transfigure it into such a unique tool.

He was immeasurably grateful for both.

* * *

 **End Note** : "Now you're getting nasty." and "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?" are both from "Raiders of the Lost Ark"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Hermione lingered at the end of the tunnel, just beyond the stretched square of light that shone down from the surface and the oblique angle needed to see her. Draco let his shoes scuff the ground as he approached, and she turned, watching his approach with wide, shining eyes. She looked lost, which was a rare, unsettling thing, for since he'd known her, she had never been without a plan.

Placing his hands on her shoulders, he turned her so that she faced him squarely. "I know there's a circus of mental gymnastics happening in your head right now. You're blaming yourself for Todd's death, wondering what you could've done to prevent it, cursing the choices that have brought you to this moment. But I am telling you," he said quietly, giving her a small shake, "that we don't have time for any of that right now. Agonizing over every past decision isn't going to bring him back or make what we have to do next any more pleasant, and what we have to do next is deal with two interns who are probably scared out of their minds and on the brink of doing something stupid, an oblivious American back at the camp, and this damn thing."

He lifted the shirt-wrapped bundle; Hermione's eyes darted to it and away again. She released a shaky breath and lowered her chin, steeling herself before walking into the patch of light. Draco followed and squinted up into the haloed face of Heather, whose worried expression changed into one of intense relief when she realized what she saw.

"Holy cats, Jim!" She scrambled up and back, disappearing from view. "They're back!"

"Thank the gods. Clear a space," he shouted to them. "I've made a ladder."

Draco backed up several steps, and then several more as stone ground upon stone above them. The legs of a thick, inelegantly transfigured stone ladder peeked over the hole's edge. The ladder's legs tipped downward, and gravity took it from there. It landed with a ear-splitting crack, spitting stone chips in every direction.

Draco climbed the ladder first, blinking as he stepped into the sun and heat, and helped Hermione up. Jim stared at the hole expectantly, while Heather's eyes were locked on Draco's chest.

"What happened down there?" she asked Draco's pectorals.

Jim looked between them, his expression dissolving into one of concern. Draco braced himself, but it still felt like being punched in the gut when he asked, "Where's Todd?"

Draco left before Hermione could answer, but walked too slowly to escape Heather's gasped sob.

Back at camp, he was greeted by the smell of frying fish and Mitchell holding a spatula.

He, too, spared a glance for Draco's bare chest, which shone with sweat. "Looks like you had an adventure," he quipped, waggling his eyebrows.

Draco scowled at the man's good mood and cured hangover. He pointed at their camp tent. "Pack up. You're leaving."

"We are?"

" _You_ are," Draco repeated. He stalked into Hermione's tent, dropped the disc onto the table, and grabbed a new shirt. He pulled it on as he left the tent, surprised to see Mitchell standing just where he had left him, the spatula held limply at his side.

"Todd's dead." Draco's voice sounded hollow and robotic, and a knot settled into the pit of his stomach, making him nauseous. While he was not a stranger to death, it had been years since they had brushed past one another so closely. Whatever immunity he had built to it in the days of Voldemort and the war had disappeared over time. A blessing, as it made him feel more like a human. A curse, as it made him feel at all.

"Holy shit."

"In so many words," Draco agreed. "Whatever we're chasing, we're not going to put anyone else at risk."

"Understood," Mitchell said, his voice serious and deep. "I'll start packing."

"Good." Draco began to walk away, then paused and pivoted, adding, "Mitchell, I should remind you of the confidentiality agreement you signed when you began your work with me. That agreement extends to field work as well as your research."

"I remember it," Mitchell said stiffly. "I'm not going to say anything."

Draco supposed he had the right to be insulted, but he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry about it; it was part of establishing a path forward. He nodded, half in acknowledgement, half in gratitude, and headed toward Hermione's tent. On the way, he passed Jim and Heather. Heather's hazel eyes were rimmed with red, and Jim's haunted expression made Draco wonder if Todd's was the first death he had experienced.

Inside the tent, Hermione knelt before a portable fireplace, its firebox just large enough to accommodate an average-sized head.

"Jim and Heather are packing up," she said to him, still contemplating the fireplace. Her voice was low and tired. "They'll be gone soon."

"I saw them. Mitchell is doing the same. I've reminded him of his confidentiality agreement; there's no chance this will get out from my end."

Hermione sighed, as if bureaucracy and press were the last things she wanted to think about. "Jim and Heather are going to keep quiet, too. I need to contact Theo."

The look she gave him was significant, but when it became clear that he was not going to leave, Hermione sighed and threw Floo powder into the fireplace. Satisfied, Draco sat in the low, chintz-patterned chair and poured himself a healthy measure of whisky. He took a sip, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes as Hermione spoke the name, "Theodore Nott."

Nott's deep, even voice filled the tent. Draco was annoyed to hear warmth in the man's typically cool tone. "Hermione. How's the trip?"

She launched into her story, which was as unbiased and unadorned a version as could be managed. The part about Draco's arrival drew an exhaled breath from Nott, but no other comment, which Draco found unusual. When Hermione came to Todd's death, Nott cursed, another aberrant behavior.

After Hermione finished, Nott was silent for a minute. Then, he sighed. "I'm sure you did your best. Where are the other two?"

"Heading back to the Ministry. I've set them up with a Portkey. They should arrive within the hour."

"Good. I'll speak with them. And Malfoy?"

"He sent his man home. He's still here."

"Why?"

Theo's dismissive question stirred something angry in Draco and, maybe it was the shock of the day, or the effect of the whisky, or a combination of both, but before he could stop himself, he shouted, "Because I have every bloody right to be, you pretentious arsehole!"

A beat of silence. "I see he's _present_." Nott's voice was brittle.

"Yes," Hermione said, sounding too guilty for Draco's liking. "He is."

"Come back to the Ministry. I'll debrief you there."

Draco's pique surged again at Nott's peculiar choice of words.

"She'll be at the manor, as will the disc!"

"That's not our protocol."

"And it's not your disc!"

Hermione's shoulders tensed, and her words sounded as though they had escaped through clenched teeth. "I'm not leaving the disc, Theo. I'm going to Malfoy Manor."

There was a beat of silence before Nott asked, "Malfoy, will the wards still let me in?"

He ignored Hermione's annoyed huff at being talked through. "Yes, but we've made some updates since the war." He hesitated for a moment, then added with sour reluctance, "I wouldn't recommend Apparating anywhere but the foyer, unless you're tired of having four limbs."

"Noted. I'll be in sometime this evening."

"Well that's specific," Draco groused as Hermione pulled her head from the dying fire.

"Oh, stop it." Hermione shook ash out of her now dried, rather poofy hair. "You're lucky he even agreed to come to Malfoy Manor. It's a Ministry investigation."

"Which never would have happened without _me_."

A wave of her hand dismissed the argument before it could grow fangs. "It doesn't matter. Or it does, but we'll discuss it later. Do you mind?" She reached for Draco's half-empty glass, which he handed over. She drained it, wincing at the over-large swallow and coughing from the liquor's burn. She kept her eyes closed and her head tilted back for a long moment, and Draco's heart constricted at the sight. She looked so tired, yet there was still so much to do.

The roll of her shoulders indicated that she knew it, too. She lowered her chin and heaved a sigh. "Let's pack."

* * *

Draco closed the book he was searching - the twelfth of the afternoon - and pushed himself away from the study's central table, stretching his arms, back, and neck.

After a shower and a change of clothes each, Hermione had joined Draco in the study, where he had gathered a modest collection of histories and three catalogues devoted to Dark artefacts. They had worked through them for most of the day. Rosie had come and gone with dinner, tea and biscuits, and, most recently, an announcement that supper would be in an hour.

Draco knew his limits, yet Hermione's head remained doggedly bent. Her wand rapped the table beside the book in a steady, joyless beat. The pages flipped and fluttered, obediently opening to whatever search terms she silently queried, but her eyes didn't follow the results. They remained unfocused and glazed, and Draco wondered how many books she had gone through in that way - looking without seeing, searching without expecting to find anything relevant.

He leaned across the table and pulled the book away from her. The disturbance stopped her tapping and drew her gaze up. Her red-rimmed eyes looked dry and sore.

"That's enough for today," he announced.

She frowned, but nodded and leaned back, repeating the stretching process Draco had just done, a common practice among those who spent most of their time in the stacks.

"I couldn't find anything," she said, stifling a yawn. "Some mentions of Aten, but always in conjunction with Ra. Nothing on Maru-Aten, or the disc, or a creature that lived in or around the Nile."

"I came across several sets of cursed dinnerware, but the closest I came to _that_ ," he gestured with a nod toward the disc, which he had put on a chair at the table's far end, "was a hexed discus used in the Roman Olympics."

Hermione rose from her chair with a groan. "I can't believe there's no mention of it."

Draco stood, too, and followed her to where the disc sat, housed in a more dignified canvas bag instead of his crudely constructed shirt sling.

"Ours is hardly a comprehensive collection of ancient Egyptian history."

"Still…"

He let her silence linger uninterrupted as they both stared at the canvas tote. From the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione shudder. His body caught it, too, and Draco shifted his shoulders as the feeling traveled from his chest through his limbs.

The disc made him uncomfortable, and not just because of what it had cost to obtain it or the physical, tingling-stinging reaction he had to it. The artefact carried an oppressive, gloomy atmosphere, which suffused the room like a dense fog. The magic felt repulsive and unfamiliar, almost alien, and Draco had little desire to interact with it at all. In fact, he was of the firm opinion that dropping it into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean would be the most logical answer to the question, "What now?"

"Hermione?"

A deep voice resonated from the doorway behind them, tearing Draco from his thoughts. He turned, wand drawn and jinx prepared, to find Theo standing at the study door. Draco lowered his wand, glowering at the unexpected interruption.

"No announcement, Nott? Where are your manners?"

Nott brushed past Draco and set a friendly hand on Hermione's shoulder.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Nott said, sounding sincere. "Have you examined it yet?"

"We haven't," Draco answered, "and we shouldn't until -"

"Is that it?" Nott brushed past again; Draco barely resisted the urge to trip him.

"We've spent the entire day performing a literary search," Hermione said. Nott knelt down, eye-level with the wrapped artefact. "We weren't able to find anything."

"Of course you weren't," Nott said, unsurprised. With careful hands, he lifted the tote's flap and withdrew the disc. He held it with equal parts reverence and ease, as if he could feel neither its doom-and-gloom aura nor its million-creeping-spiders tingle.

"It's beautiful…" he whispered, running his long fingers over the carved runes. "I can't believe… Egypt, all this time…"

Draco and Hermione shared a glance - worried on his part, confused on hers - and all three of them jumped when a loud crack split the silence.

"Rosie has served supper, Masters and Mistress," she said with a curtsey.

* * *

The violin music had faded away, and the meal's remnants had been cleared. The setting sun slivered through the tall windows, casting drawn-out shadows and causing the candle flames to grow in response. Draco poured himself a digestif, took a bracing sip, and gestured at the dragon in the room.

"What is it?"

Nott looked to both Draco and Hermione, an unsettling smile playing over his thin lips. He lifted the artefact with one hand and set it to hovering between the three of them. It rotated slowly as if it were a museum display. One side of the disc - the side Draco considered the top - was rough grey-black stone, marked with shapes both upraised and indented. He could not discern a pattern, but some shapes seemed to repeat, and Draco wondered if it might have been a long-forgotten language. The disc's bottom side was flat, smooth, and, in stark contrast to its dull face, shone with rainbow-like colors. The colors shifted, merging and separating like the patterns in a kaleidoscope. It was as mesmerizing as it was unnerving - as if, if he looked at it too long, he might not be able to look away.

"Malfoy, will you please excuse us?"

"Excuse me?" he drawled, affecting nonchalance. He had been expecting a conversation like this to rear, and now, he found that he was aching for it. He kept calm, however; a fit of temper would only weaken his case.

"The Ministry appreciates your help in this matter," Nott said, characteristically bureaucratic, "but your role here is at its end."

"Theo -" Hermione started.

"This is Ministry business," Nott persisted, "and -"

"Is it the Ministry's business to get people killed?"

Hermione gasped. "Draco!"

Nott's dark brown eyes flicked to Hermione, then back to Draco, his tone expertly modulated to the severity of her expression. "I value the lives of all Ministry employees, Malfoy, and that you can sit here making jokes just proves that you're not qualified to -"

"Draco did everything he could to save Todd!" Hermione snapped, rounding on Nott. "And he saved my life. It that doesn't make him _qualified -_ "

"It's a matter of confidentiality," Nott said, still unruffled.

"Hire me on as a consultant. I'll even waive my usual fee."

No one spoke as Draco and Nott stared each other down. Draco knew that his former housemate was playing out the next possible moves in his head, considering all arguments, consequences, and outcomes. Draco did the same, and they reached the conclusion at the same time.

Draco leaned back in his chair with a smug smile, and Nott straightened, looking annoyed. He held out his hand.

"Draco Abraxas Malfoy, I would like to extend you an offer of contractual employment for the Ministry of Magic. Your employment will begin immediately upon acceptance of this verbal contract, and it will end immediately upon the first of the following conditions to be fulfilled: my death, your death, or mutual agreement of the expedition's end. You will receive no fee or Ministry-funded benefits from your employment, and you will not attempt to obtain any. You -"

Draco clasped Nott's hand and rattled off in one breath, "I-Draco-Abraxas-Malfoy-so-accept-these-terms." A flash of blinding purple light erupted from their joined hands, sealing the contract.

Nott dropped Draco's hand, and his lips pressed together into a thin, white slash. He rose slowly and announced, his voice seething with quiet anger, "You're a bastard."

Draco's platinum brows arched. "This is a new development?"

"You are a contract Ministry employee under incomplete terms," Nott explained.

"The terms you listed were quite enough for me."

"There were behavioral and harassment clauses, terms for immediate termination -"

"Under which I would prefer _not_ to operate."

Nott narrowed his eyes. "I should sack you right now."

Draco smirked. "Will you be killing me, or killing yourself? I know which I'd prefer."

"Will you two stop?" The venom in Hermione's voice might have eaten through stone, and her glare would have lit whatever remained on fire. "You are two grown men acting like children. Three people risked their lives for that _thing_ , and Todd gave his, in the end. Now I've waited an entire bloody day for an answer, and I'm not going to wait any longer. Theodore, _what is it_?"

Draco looked at Nott. The man still looked unsure, as if he were willing to risk Hermione's wrath if it meant depriving Draco, so Draco gave him a barely perceptible nod. It wasn't much of an olive branch, but it was the most Nott would get from him. For Slytherins, it was usually enough. Nott settled back in his chair and took a moment to gather himself, calming as he stared at the rotating disc.

"I don't know what it is."

Draco sat in stunned silence for a moment, then let out a loud, barking laugh. Hermione's jaw had yet to close.

"You don't know?" she asked, voice faint with incredulity.

Nott shook his head. "I need to take it back to the Ministry for analysis."

"No fucking way," Draco interrupted, drawing a surprised look from Hermione. "You can bring whatever tools you need here, but if that thing goes into the Department of Mysteries, it's never coming out again."

"But Draco, we need to know," Hermione pressed.

"What's it to you if you never see it again?"

"It's powerful, you idiot," Draco said to Nott, sneering. "Can't you feel it? It's…" He hesitated to say it, but there was no better word. "... evil."

"Power isn't evil," Nott countered. "Evil is in the intention, not the tool."

"And how does the Ministry _intend_ to use this _tool_ , Nott? How do _you_ plan to use it?"

"Any artefacts in possession of the Department of Mysteries are used exclusively for research."

"Like the thousands of Time-Turners you manufactured from the Sands of Time? Or the Hall of Prophecy? You're full of shite."

"It is _Ministry_ property," Nott insisted.

"Because of _me_ ," Draco said.

"We would have found it without you."

" _We_?" Hermione cut in, glaring at her supervisor and peer. "I don't recall you being there."

" _I_ recall sending you there on my behalf."

"You never would've allowed yourself to be so unprepared," Draco interrupted again. "They had no idea where to look, or what was waiting for them."

"You did?"

"I had a hunch."

"And your hunch entitles you to ownership?"

"A hunch that saves the life of your employee does."

"Merlin's beard, we can't manage a civil discussion among the three of us," Hermione said weakly, putting her elbows on the table and dropping her head into her hands.

"That disc is not leaving this house," Draco said in his best brook-no-argument tone.

Nott stood. "Then I will."

Hermione groaned and, with what looked like significant effort, lifted her head. "Theo, please. You can't just _leave_."

"If I'm not allowed to bring it back to the Ministry, and there's nothing of use here, then I have to bring Ministry resources here. This is what _you_ suggested, Malfoy."

"I recall," Draco confirmed. "It would have been more helpful if you had just brought what you needed the first time."

"I expected a modicum of cooperation _the first time_." Nott withdrew his wand and tapped the disc. " _Gemino_." A full-sized replica fell to the table with a high, tinny clang. Nott grabbed it and nodded to Hermione. "I'll see you tomorrow." Then, he turned to Draco. "I'll show myself out."

"Good riddance," Draco muttered with a dismissive wave.

"Arse," Nott muttered back.

Hermione's head had fallen back into her hands. "We can't continue on like this," she said on a shaky breath.

"Speak for yourself. I could've gone all night."

"And accomplished what?" She turned toward him. "This dinner was a useless exercise. We learned nothing."

"On the contrary." He stood and reached for her hands, which she gave, allowing him to help her up. She plucked the disc from the middle of the table, and he led her from the dining room. "We learned quite a bit about Nott."

She gave him a skeptical look.

"We know that he's afraid of being questioned, because despite having every legal authority to tell me to bugger off, he didn't. If he had, I'd have devoted a substantial amount of _Prophet_ resources to uncovering whatever he's trying to hide. A surge of public awareness would lead to increased scrutiny, would lead to questions, would lead to Nott's plan - whatever it is - being derailed."

Hermione was quiet for a long time. "You're so sure he's going to use the artefact for evil?"

He looked askance at her. "You're not?"

"I think he'll use it, but how…" She shook her head, unsure. "I don't think Theo is an evil man."

"Is he a good man?"

She frowned; Draco knew she wanted to answer yes, that Nott was good and worthy of her trust. But she couldn't, whether from Draco's story or her own experiences with him. He suspected the latter, and pressed her further.

"What aren't you telling me?"

She stopped abruptly and met his inquiring gaze. "You've never been the in Department of Mysteries," she said, not asking, but stating, "but it's been described to you. You know about some of the rooms, and some of what the Ministry is keeping."

He didn't bother confirming it; they both knew it was true.

"When I first joined, Theo and I were co-workers. We were both assigned to the Room of Common Mysteries - history, artefacts, the evolution of magic, new magics that cropped up around the world. Ptolomea Price, our former department head, told us to stay away from the Greater Mysteries. Shortly after, she threw herself into the Veil."

Draco remembered that story well. Both Hermione and Nott had been investigated, and both had come away clean. Price's death had been ruled a suicide. Draco was of a different opinion. A shadow of an old argument must have darkened his eyes, because Hermione set her chin in defiance.

"He didn't do it."

"Did I say he did?"

"You were thinking it."

"He had motive."

"Theo had been in the department for two years before I joined. We were the only two in the department, excluding whatever interns we could scrape from the pool. He was the natural choice for head."

Draco shrugged, willing to let it drop. Nott's culpability for Price's death was a point upon which they would never agree. Unless she were given concrete evidence, Hermione would defend him. And since he was clever enough to ensure no evidence would ever surface, she and Draco would remain at an impasse on the subject.

"Theo picked up the extra responsibilities, which is _not_ further proof of his guilt," she said in response to Draco's raised eyebrow, "and it was business as usual until about six months ago. He started spending less time with me in Common Mysteries. A day or two per month, at first, but then it escalated. A few days a week, a few weeks per month, entire months…

"I went looking for him one day, and I found him in the Room of Knowledge, the Brain Room," she clarified, seeing Draco's puzzled look. "He was sitting before the tank, watching the Ancients - the brains - and talking. And the Ancients… I think they were communicating with him. They're usually motionless, just drifting around unless something or someone disturbs their solution. But they were moving, and Draco, it was _organized_."

"What was he saying?"

Hermione shook her head, her eyes drifting out of focus. "Theo was too far away and too quiet for me to hear. I left before he saw me; I don't think he knows that I know. But I think they're connected - these searches and whatever he's been doing in the Room of Knowledge."

Draco tugged her into motion up the stairs. "Can you feel it?" he asked suddenly. "When you pick it up?"

She nodded, and Draco felt a weight he didn't know he carried lift from his chest. "I don't like it," she admitted. She lifted the disc, eyes running over its front carvings. "It feel like it's waiting for something. Like it's an unfinished current, and when the circuit completes, something will happen." She looked over at him. "What do you think it does? Channel magic, maybe? Like a kind of prehistoric wand?"

"Not sure," he answered, though remembering the explosion of color he saw when he touched the altar earlier that morning, he had a guess.

He stopped at the entrance to Hermione's guest room and opened the door for her. She fidgeted, then looked at him, her brown eyes pleading. He bit his cheeks to keep from smiling and waited, his expression neutral. Her shoulders sagged.

"You're going to make me ask, aren't you?"

"Ask what?" he said, feigning innocence.

She sighed. "Fine. Which brand would you prefer? Perhaps an _I don't want to be alone tonight_? _I sleep better when I'm next to you_? Maybe a _Please, Draco Malfoy, take me to your bed_?"

He cracked a grin and took her hand once more. "The last sounds promising."

"In your dreams."

"I ardently hope so."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note** : As an apology for taking last week off, I present you with two chapters today. Hope all my U.S. readers had a happy Thanksgiving and hope all my non-U.S. readers had an especially pleasant Thursday last week. :)

Enjoy!

 **Chapter Four**

A sound like the cracking of a whip spurred Draco into consciousness. He rocketed out of bed, grabbing his wand from its familiar place on his bedside table as he did so.

"Please, Master Draco!" Rosie's thin, panicked voice shouted from the business-end of his wand. Her words stumbled out over hiccoughing sobs, her tiny body trembling beneath her toga. "Please, don't be cursing us, sir!"

Draco's heart slowed from a gallop to a trot, and he lowered his wand to find Rosie cowering before him. Every bit of her was tucked in, presenting as small a target as possible, save for her over-large, bat-like ears. Surprise registered first; Rosie had never entered his room without his express permission. Outrage and irrational anger soon took its place. He lowered his wand, his voice a croaking hiss as he demanded, "What is the meaning of this?"

"Master Nott is downstairs, sir! He is -"

Draco once more sprang into motion, grabbing his robe and tying it closed even as he stalked toward the door. All his irritability at being unexpectedly pulled from sleep, which had then doubled from his embarrassment at nearly decapitating his own elf, increased exponentially due to Nott's unorthodox arrival time.

"What's he doing here so early?" Hermione asked, following him down the hall.

"One of many things I would like him to explain."

They rounded the corner to the staircase, and saw Nott waiting at the bottom landing. In all the years of their acquaintance - through youthful hangovers, illicit potions, and lost duels - Draco had never seen him looking worse. His skin was pale and tinged a strange blue-green, like he was hypothermic and nauseous all at once. Sweat plastered damp hair to his forehead, and caused his shirt to cling to his chest and arms. Red-rimmed eyes, lips cracked with white flakes of skin, and his wild, twitchy look gave him the air of an addict gone too long without a fix.

Hermione pushed past Draco, reaching out to Nott with both hands.

"Theo, what happened?"

He shoved past her, his bright eyes focused on Draco, and then his hands were on the lapels of Draco's robe, driving him backwards until he collided with the wall. A large blue vase tipped, the porcelain pieces shattering as it crashed to the floor. Draco's remaining restraint shattered right along with it.

His movements felt automatic, driven by some primal instinct to defend his home and body. He drew his arms inward and upward so that they were between Nott's, and then threw them down with a sharp motion, ripping Nott's hands from the creased silk of his robe. His fist, still low, coiled back and jabbed at Nott's midsection, colliding with the firm muscle of his stomach and continuing upwards. Nott gasped and rocked backwards, and Draco's second punch - this time aimed at Nott's face - just grazed the man's cheek. Nott staggered nonetheless, backing several feet away and glaring at Draco over the hand he held to his cheek.

"Where is it?" Nott rasped, hunched and gasping. Draco felt a surge of fierce victory as Nott pulled his hand away, revealing a small, bleeding scratch, where his signet ring had torn Nott's skin.

"None of your fucking business."

"Upstairs," Hermione answered simultaneously. Draco scowled at her.

"Get it," Nott demanded, gaining his breath and straightening.

"Don't you dare," Draco spat, pinning Hermione - who, to her credit, had not moved - in place with his glare. For once, she did not argue, just looked at him with wide, almost frightened eyes and nodded. "Start talking," he demanded, addressing Nott once more.

Nott gave him a sour look, then glanced at Hermione. Finding no succor in her intent expression and folded arms, his mouth twitched. "It has many names, but it's most commonly referred to as the Sun Disc. It's moved from civilization to civilization over the years, and it's old."

"How old?" Draco asked.

Nott's mouth twitched again. "Old," he repeated. "As old as time itself. Older than that, maybe. Its mythology states that it's not from this world, but without performing an analysis, I can't be sure."

But Draco was. The shifting, metallic colors on the disc's smooth side, the way gravity seemed to work double on it… It was unlike anything he had ever seen or even imagined to exist.

"What does it do?" Hermione asked.

Nott's eyes shifted to Hermione's, then dropped to the floor. Draco clenched his jaw; he had thought Nott was a better liar than that.

"The ancients used it for navigational and religious purposes. It may be able to predict planetary alignments, solstices, eclipses…"

"It's a clock?" Draco pressed, unable to keep the tension out of his voice.

"As far as I can tell."

"And the Ministry needs another?"

"The Time Room was destroyed," Nott said, lifting his gaze once more and giving Hermione a small, knowing smile. She shifted her weight and grimaced, and Draco let them have the moment.

The pieces were beginning to fit together. Nott might have been lying about the Sun Disc's specific abilities, but the general details were true enough. The Sun Disc had to do with timing, yes, but on a much larger scale than Nott had indicated. When he had touched the altar, Draco had seen the birth of a universe - probably _the_ universe. The latent magic that had allowed him to see it must have come from the disc, and it wasn't too absurd a leap to conclude that the disc had something - if not everything - to do with it.

The power of creation, held in his bedroom closet.

His head spun with the implication, and a cold, heavy weight dropped into the pit of his stomach at the thought of that power in the hands of Theodore Nott.

Draco slid his gaze over to Nott and adjusted his grip on his wand. If he took Nott out with a quick Stunner, he could explain his theory to Hermione and drop the artefact in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean before Nott regained consciousness. He would probably have to go into hiding afterwards to avoid Nott's ire, but a solitary life in the wilds of, say, Canada, would be infinitely preferable to one where Nott got to play god.

Before Draco could cast, Nott continued, his eyes still on Hermione. "And there's more: it's not the only one."

" _What_?"

"There's another half," Nott explained, giving Draco's falling wand a cursory, calculating glance. "Sometime during its time on Earth, or perhaps upon its arrival here, the disc sheared. The two halves were never in the same place at the same time because, until now, no one civilization ever had the means to locate both and reunite them."

"You know where the other half is," Hermione said, more of a statement than a question.

Nott answered her anyway. "Yes." His eyes swung around to Draco. "And if you would fetch the half from Maru-Aten, we can be on our way."

"Where are we going?"

"The Cook Islands."

The weight in Draco's stomach sank lower. The Cook Islands were comprised of fifteen separate land masses. Fifteen separate locations for the other half of the Sun Disc. He shared a look with Hermione: her Australian excursion had just been explained.

"We'll leave in thirty minutes," Draco said, working out a silent timeline.

Nott frowned. "Sooner would be -"

"Thirty minutes," he repeated. "Let's go, Hermione."

Draco held out his hand, which she took, and led her up the stairs at a casual pace. Once they rounded the corner and were out of view, he dropped her hand and broke into a loping jog, taking care to keep his footfalls light on the uncarpeted wood floor. Hermione matched his pace, her shorter legs pumping in what was closer to a run.

"We don't have much time," he muttered to her. "How good are your Gemino reproductions?"

"They're good," she replied, equally quiet, "but I couldn't replicate that sheen on its smooth side, its weight, or the tingling sensation. The minute Nott holds it, he'll feel the difference and know it's a copy."

"And we wouldn't be able to keep it away from him."

"Not without arousing suspicion," she agreed.

Draco frowned. "Nott lied about what the disc can do."

"I know." Surprise must have shown on Draco's face, for Hermione said, somewhat bitterly, "I can read facial tics as well as anyone, thank you. But if it's not a very old timepiece, what is it?"

"Those creation stories every religion seems to have?" He paused to press his hand to his bedroom door.

"You think… You think it's _the_ creator?"

"I think it's a tool," he clarified, "but at the end of the day, I'm not sure how much difference there is."

"What happens if we find the other half? If the pieces meet?" He met her wide brown eyes and saw the myriad possibilities to her unanswerable questions swimming behind them. It did not take long for her gaze to settle. "We can't let him get the other half," she said. "We can't let him join them."

"Glad you agree. Rosie?" The elf appeared before him. "Go to Ms. Granger's flat and pick up some field clothes for her. Do you need anything else?" Hermione shook her head, and Rosie disappeared.

"What are we going to do?"

In two large steps, Draco was at his desk, setting quill to parchment so quickly that he worried the note might not be legible.

"We're going to let him lead us to the disc's other half," he muttered, "and I'm going to Stun him before he even gets close to it."

Rosie reappeared with a pile of clothes clasped in her thin arms. Hermione knelt and accepted them, looking up at Draco with a skeptical expression.

"Do you think that will work?" she asked him.

He shrugged and folded the note. "Deliver this, Rosie. Make sure it's read. And I'm not sure we have time to plan anything better," he said to Hermione while untying his robe.

She frowned at that, then disappeared into the bathroom to change. Draco donned the same style of lightweight, durable clothing as yesterday, strapped his wand holster to his arm, and, after a moment of thought, coiled his whip and hung it at his belt.

* * *

Nott waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. He handed Hermione an old, brass candlestick holder and Draco a rubber duck of faded yellow.

"These Portkeys will take us to the island," Nott said. The chipped porcelain cup he held began to glow. "See you there."

There was time enough for Draco and Hermione to exchange a panicked look. Then her Portkey glowed blue, and she was gone.

"Shite," he swore. The rubber duck let out a faint, squeaky wheeze as he squeezed it, willing it to glow.

The minute between their departures was just long enough to feel nearly frozen by fear, but not long enough to think of a way to save Hermione and prevent himself from landing feet-first in Nott's clever trap. The best he could do was draw his wand and hope Nott had gotten much, much worse at dueling. The rubber duck wheezed again as it dragged him through space.

He stumbled as he landed on uneven ground. Idyllic palm trees swayed in a gentle breeze, and a steep cliff of sharp, gray rock jutted into a bright blue sky, but that was all Draco saw before a streak of light struck him in the chest, sending him skyward and then slamming him into the shallow water.

The water felt like a slab of concrete, and the breath whooshed out of him. He threw his arms out to push himself upright when another jet of light hissed at him. He flew from the water as if yanked by an invisible hand and had just enough time to scream before colliding with the sand.

Draco landed hard on his right shoulder. There was an instant of pain, and then the limb went numb. Knowing this was his last chance, he cast a spell. An indistinct, silvery shape erupted out of his wand and shot across the water just before a boot came down hard on his left shoulder, forcing him onto his back. He groaned, shielding his eyes with his left hand, and squinted up at Nott, whose wand was aimed at Draco's face. With a flash of red, the world went black.

* * *

Eventually, Draco became aware of cool air on his skin. The sooty, rain-soaked smell of it reminded him of London. There was the sound of dress shoes on a marble floor, and the crash-and-ding of an impatient lift. A wave of nausea he could do nothing to fight washed over him as the lift rocketed down, then abated somewhat by another rush of distinctly subterranean air. Doors opened and closed, and Draco had the feeling of being steered down several corridors before stopping in a space that smelled sharp and vaguely chemical.

Draco opened his eyes and realized he was in the Department of Mysteries. He hung suspended behind Nott, who knelt, his back taut with rapt attention, before a tank of brains. The Ancients. They raced around their aquatic home like Quidditch players, their spinal columns streaming behind them like thin cloaks. Over each of Nott's shoulders, Draco saw the two halves of the Sun Disc lying engraved-side up. His wand, he realized with dismay, was in Nott's back pocket.

The Ancients stopped their complex, patterned swimming, and Nott's head turned to one side. With a gesture of his hand, Draco felt the Disillusionment charm break. He tried to move, but Nott's binding curse held fast.

Nott glanced down at his wrist, checking the time. "Just a few more minutes now. We should get going." Nott stacked the disc's halves atop one another, keeping their engraved sides facing up, and with a jab of his wand, propelled Draco backwards. As if directed by a breeze, Draco drifted out of the Room of Knowledge to a chamber filled with doors. He had heard of this place, and tried to un-focus his eyes in an effort to prevent the return of his nausea. The room stayed stationary, however, and Nott opened a second door.

Draco's stomach gave a violent clench as cold burned its way through his organs and bones. The room was designed like an amphitheater, and at its center stood an arch. Sheer grey fabric hung from it, moving and rippling though there was no breeze in the room. He was in the Death Chamber, and that was the Veil - the only physical portal that existed between life and death.

"It's not ideal," Nott said, looking between Draco and the Veil. "The sacrifice is supposed to take place on All Hallows Eve, when the worlds of the living and the dead are closest together. But I've spent so long searching for the Sun Disc, and you presented such a convenient sacrifice. It's not like I could've let you live after all this, anyway. You don't know much," he said with a small laugh, "but you certainly know enough."

Instinctive terror overtook him, and the surge of desperate power was enough to break Nott's binding. Draco cried out and plunged to the floor, landing awkwardly on unprepared legs and rolling down a few of the chamber's stone steps. He dodged curse after curse, rolling and lunging, at last landing on his injured shoulder and sending a torrent of pain down his arm.

He tugged his arm closer, holding it across his chest, but the delay allowed one of Nott's spells to connect. Draco's was again tossed into the air and he landed, not on more steps, but on the cool, even stone of the amphitheater's center. He felt the Veil behind him, heard the soft, entreating whispers from behind its tattered curtain, and scrambled away from it.

Another spell hit him, spinning and flipping him before slamming him back into the ground. Something in his chest snapped; it hurt to breathe.

"Be still," Nott demanded, and had Draco not been in such pain, he might have laughed. He had been beaten in the most literal sense. He was unarmed, and he couldn't imagine a scenario in which he regained his wand. Being still was about the only thing he _could_ do now.

"On your knees."

Draco obeyed. It was difficult to comprehend just how utterly he had lost, how much his hubris and, yes, underestimation of Nott had cost him. His death was inevitable, but he felt none of the peace that was supposed to come hand in hand with the realization. He felt bitter at having been outsmarted, angry that he hadn't anticipated it, helpless to change anything, worried about what may be beyond, and - above all - terrified for the woman who might have already met her fate.

Nott's wand jabbed Draco in the soft skin beneath his chin, lifting his head until their eyes met. Nott's smile was a mockery of the true thing, a terrible, gloating expression that was somehow the most honest Draco had ever seen him.

"I so look forward to killing you."

A sparkling ray of white light collided with Nott, sending him off balance.

"Draco, move!"

He did, falling to one side and scrabbling as far and as fast as he could away from a staggering Nott and the patient Veil.

"No!" Nott snarled. " _Crucio_!"

Excruciating pain, cold and vicious, took Draco's arms and legs from beneath him. He was insensible to all else, his world a kaleidoscope of agony in which he could do no more than clutch at his body and scream, now aching for death as a blessed relief from the pain of his life.

It abated as swiftly and completely as it had come, leaving him breathless and weak.

"Let him go, Theo."

Draco's heart stuttered into overtime: Hermione. She did not look at him, but he could look nowhere else. If he had to die today, then he would be taking the sweetest sight he could imagine with him to the beyond - the woman he loved, fierce and fearless, bleeding, soaked through, and fighting to save him.

"I thought you had drowned," Nott said, cold and accusing.

"Let him go," she repeated, ignoring the distraction. "You don't want to do this."

"Don't want to do this?" A slow, fanatical grin crept over Nott's face, and he broke into a high-pitched giggle. "You don't even know what _this_ is!"

"Neither do you!" she challenged. "It's the Ancients. They've put thoughts in your head, fed you lies. Manipulated you." Nott's expression faltered, and she took half a step forward. "I saw it with Ron in our fifth year. They attacked him, and he wasn't himself for weeks."

Nott snorted. "He was weak."

"He was strong enough to realize that what the Ancients had shown him wasn't true!"

"What they showed me is!" Nott lifted the two halves of the disc. " _This_ is the answer to the Great Mysteries we study, Hermione. Time, fate, knowledge, prophecy, love - all of them! Creation," he held one disc high above his head, "and destruction." He lifted the other, held in the same hand as his wand. "Two sides of the universal coin. The Ancients knew I was worthy, knew my mind - above yours, above Ptolomea's - was strongest. _I_ am best equipped to use this knowledge, and _I_ can save us ."

"Save who?"

" _Us_ ," he repeated with a grand gesture, incredulous joy suffusing his voice. "All of us! Humans have been manufacturing their own destruction for ages. They enslave and murder each other for money and ideology. They breed like rabbits, overpopulating the planet and raping it of its resources. They look to the stars for their future, dreaming of colonization, but not realizing that their spread is a disease - a cosmic virus that threatens to throw the universe out of balance. _That_ is what the Ancients showed me, and you can't tell me it's not the truth!"

"You're delusional," Draco croaked.

Nott whipped around to look at him, his face set in a zealot's rictus.

"I'm our savior."

Nott jabbed with his wand, and lancing pain shot through the left side of Draco's chest. He gasped as his heart clenched, his hand flying to the source of the pain. When he drew his fingers back, they were shaking and coated with a bright, scarlet sheen of blood.

With wide, disbelieving eyes, he looked back at Nott, who, with a swift, precise motion, brought the Sun Disc's halves together.

They collided with the sound and force of a thunderclap at the same time Hermione shouted, " _Accio_!"

The disc soared across the room and landed in Hermione's hands, as if that was where it had always belonged. There was an instant of connection, a split-second of eyes meeting and realizations made and terror felt, and then Hermione's neck snapped back and her mouth opened wide. Her scream was a terrible sound, unnaturally high yet underpinned with deep, resonating tremors, like crashing and colliding and tearing metal.

She rose into the air, and Draco flopped forward, desperate to get to her, to take her burden and bear it himself. But as gravity stopped working on her, it worked double on him. He felt pinned to the earth, unable to move, barely able to hold his head aloft. Her hair spread around her like a halo, and then she exploded.

Light burst from every inch of her, purple and blues and golds and reds, stars and suns and one million motes of light, all caught in her glorious orbit. It soon consumed all color, growing into a pure white, like that of the sun's, but magnified a thousand times. It was beautiful and blinding, and he had to look away.

And as Draco closed his eyes, he discovered the peace he had been missing. The air around him trembled with energy and force, but his labored breathing grew easy. The Death Chamber reverberated with deep, thundering explosions, but below it, Draco heard a soft melody, like that of phoenix song, signalling the end.

Gentle hands took hold of his shoulder and hip. They rolled him onto his back, and his limp body felt no pain. There was only warmth, and a faint tingling where the hands had visited - his left cheek, his right shoulder, his torso, and the left side of his chest, just above his heart. Fingers ran through his hair, traveling a path too familiar to be coincidental, and Draco, despite his better judgment, opened his eyes.

Hermione hovered over him, but she wasn't the woman he remembered. She was naked, and her skin glowed. Every bare inch of her shone with the radiance of a thousand newborn suns. Her eyes were twin galaxies, all amber and gold, swirling as she looked at him. A carpet of distant stars could not capture how her smile glittered, and when she spoke, her voice was at once light and resonant, both uniquely hers and yet far, far more. At that moment, Draco knew that Nott's quest to discover the answers to life's great mysteries had succeeded. But the answers weren't contained in any object, or held in a physical place that could be unlocked with a key. They were before him, and had been all along, contained in the flawed, lovely woman who had never given up on him, and never would.

"You're so beautiful."

It wasn't the best line, and probably wasn't appropriate for the situation, but it was true, and the only thing he could think to say. The way her smile grew and her eyes sparkled, he didn't regret it.

"Rise, Draco Malfoy. You are not done yet."

Draco smiled. He knew he was dying. More likely, he was already dead, and she was the light he had to walk into in order to complete the transition. He pushed himself up, and she backed away as he sat. She rose to her feet and offered her hand to help him up. Before he took it, he looked himself over. His white linen shirt was still stained with blood, but when he touched the wound that had produced it, he found nothing but smooth skin. Same with the wound on his cheek. He swung and flexed his right arm, finding that its full range of motion had returned. He looked questioningly at her, but she only smiled and extended her fingers toward him, as if to say, "Well?"

He took her hand, stood, and looked around. He was still in the amphitheater. Several stone steps were in the midst of exploding, chunks of grey rock stuck in the air. A fine mist of dust floated from the room's ceiling, clouding the space above their heads. Nott, too, seemed caught in time. His lean face was twisted into an ugly, almost feral scream. Veins protruded from his forehead, neck, and arms, which were extended toward the space where Hermione had been standing. His wand's tip glowed with a pale, colorless light; he was about to cast a spell.

Draco furrowed his brow and turned toward Hermione. She stared at Nott with a sad, almost disappointed expression, her strange eyes growing dim.

"What is this?" he asked. "What's happening?"

"Balance," she answered. She ran a hand down Nott's furious cheek. His skin glowed pale gold beneath her touch, but only for a moment. When his skin returned to its normal pallor, she shook her head. "He is lost to us."

"Lost? How do you know?"

"It happens," she said, laying another touch upon Nott's arm. The glow faded more quickly this time. "His life was filled with choices both simple and complex, with consequences that reached farther than he could see. The path he chose presented precious few opportunities for return, and now, he has traveled too far for self-correction."

She reached to Nott's back pocket and withdrew Draco's wand. A lump lodged in his throat as she looked at it, and then at him. The galaxies in her eyes glowed brighter and spun faster, and her voice held an accusatory note when she said, "Your path was similar to his."

"I know," he said, voice breaking.

And she knew, too: every petty thought he had ever had and selfish action he had ever taken as a result; every malicious spell he had cast and vindictive pleasure he had felt as the person who had slighted him suffered; every cowardly decision he had excused via self-preservation and every missed opportunity to choose another way.

She saw it and judged him, and he was ashamed.

"I know," he repeated, looking down and away from her omnipotent eyes. "I've made mistakes, the biggest of which was realizing too late that I wanted to be better."

She tipped his chin up with one hand and, after a moment of consideration, kissed him. Her lips were warm and slow, tender and forgiving, and Draco's entire body buzzed with something like electricity. It found a home deep within him and triggered something, a kind of internal engine behind his sternum that kicked to life and sent a familiar, sharp tingling throughout his body and across his skin.

When she pulled away, Draco saw his own glow reflected in the stars of her eyes. He raised his hands and stared at them with fascination and fear in equal parts. Where she glowed gold with sunlight, he was all silver, like comets and moonlight and ice-covered planets. There was a darkness about him, too, running parallel to the veins beneath his skin, flowing in thick, indelible lines. The contrast of the deep blue-black made his silver radiance blinding.

Draco tore his eyes away from his hands. " _What is this_?" he asked again, his voice shaking.

She held his wand out to him, laid across both of her palms like a gifted sword. "She believes you can be better."

Draco took his wand, gaping as she walked to Nott. She tapped him once on the chest, and then Nott was off his feet, sailing backwards into the Veil and disappearing before Draco could do any more than reach out a useless hand to stop him.

The scene snapped back into motion. The exploding chunks of bench fell to the floor with sharp cracks, and the fine grains of ceiling dust settled over the entire room. There were two sharp clunks as the halves of the Sun Disc fell from Hermione's limp, non-glowing fingers. Draco watched in growing horror as her body began to follow suit, her fragile skull in near-perfect alignment with the corner of a bench.

He moved faster than he thought possible, closing the short distance between them before she was even halfway collapsed. He wrapped his arms around her middle, and, aware that he would not be able to prevent her fall, instead pivoted away from the bench so that his body was between hers and the floor.

They landed hard, the air escaping Draco's lungs on a pained groan. He pushed himself up and shifted beneath her so that his right arm supported her shoulder and her head rested against his chest.

"Hermione?" he whispered her name, and her eyes fluttered open. No longer were they swirling galaxies; just her normal, whisky brown. Draco had never seen a more welcome sight. "Hermione, are you okay?"

She pressed her fingers to her right temple and winced. "What happened?"

His mouth opened, then closed again, unsure of what to say. "You don't remember?" he asked tentatively. "You summoned it. You summoned the disc."

She pushed away from him and made to stand. Draco rose with her, steadying her with his hands below her elbows. Realizing she was undressed, she pivoted her hips and covered her breasts with one arm. The motions were slow, confused, and Draco swore. He stripped out of his shirt and coaxed her into it, guiding her clumsy arms through its sleeves and buttoning it for her. It fell to the very tops of her thighs. Her eyes still slit in a wince, she looked around the Death Chamber.

"I did…" she said, sounding unsure. "Where's Nott?"

Draco's mind spun, and suddenly he was the one feeling unsteady.

Hermione remembered none of what happened, because it hadn't been Hermione. The woman, what he thought had been a post-mortem embodiment of his conscience, had in fact been something else altogether. And he hadn't died. He was still here, and his cheek, his chest, his arm - all the very real injuries he had sustained over the past day - were healed. And the kiss, which had ignited something inside of him, which had made him glow and shine just as she had… He knew it had been old magic, the _oldest_ magic, elemental in spirit and far beyond anything even the most powerful wizard or witch could cast.

His eyes filled with tears: the most beautiful magic he had ever seen, and Hermione did not remember it. She had embodied the forces of life and death, had been privy to the gifts of the universe, the answers to _everything_ , and it was just an empty space to her. It was as much a blessing as it was a curse, and it was a responsibility that now rested on Draco's shoulders.

Her hand cupped his cheek, and Draco gasped, his tears falling from his eyes and running over her fingers.

"Are you okay?"

He nodded and wiped his face with the back of his free hand. "Fine," he croaked. "I'm fine. The Sun Disc, it…" He took a shuddering breath and tried to compose himself. He could not keep the trembling from his voice, could not prevent how it sounded thick with a suppressed sob, but he managed: "It exploded when you touched it, burned away your clothes. Nott was thrown back from the force of it and into… Into the Veil."

Hermione closed her eyes, shedding a few silent tears for the man who had once been her friend.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said after a long silence. She paused, and when she next looked at him, her expression was puzzled. "How are you okay? I thought Nott had killed you."

"He didn't activate it," Draco whispered, choosing his words carefully. "You did. The Sun Disc required a sacrifice, and you offered yourself in my place. The same force that stopped him healed me."

"Two sides of the same coin…" she murmured.

She turned her head, and Draco followed her gaze to the Sun Disc. It had once more cleaved down the middle, each half lying smooth side up. Draco's heart skipped a beat; the nebulous pattern, swirling in slow, shifting colors, wasn't a random property of the disc's physical composition, but a preview of the magic it contained.

"What do we do with it?" she asked.

Draco answered at once. "You're going to take one half, I'm going to take the other, and we're going to hide them. We're going to take them to the most remote corners of the world, bury them deep, guard them with the most rigid enchantments we can, and make an Unbreakable Vow to never disclose their locations. We're going to make sure that no one in our lifetime, or any other, has the chance to use them again."

* * *

 **End Note** : The inspiration for this artefact is the Nebra Sky Disk, which is the oldest known depiction of the cosmos and is hailed as "one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century," according to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. I got the information about it from Wikipedia.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Epilogue**

Draco switched his wand from his left hand to his right, drawing the left into the sleeve of his thick, multilayered fur cloak. He clenched and stretched his fingers, trying to work some blood into the half-frozen digits to warm them. The expensive fur gloves he wore might as well have been satin for all they helped, and after another five minutes, he repeated the process, drawing his right hand in and gritting his teeth as his left was once again exposed to the worse-than-frigid temperatures of the Antarctic Circle.

The darkness didn't help matters any. Though the June solstice was two months away, Antarctica was stuck in a state of perpetual twilight. Today, the sky was shades of purple - from lightest spring lilac to the richest royal - and only the brightest stars and planets shone through the dim light. It was a stunning sight that, when combined with the wind and the punishing cold, took Draco's breath away.

The _wind_. Draco hadn't considered that part of the equation, either, and scowled beneath his balaclava. The katabatic winds coming down from the nameless mountain had swept all the snow and ice from the ground, desiccating the region as if it were a desert. Fewer layers made boring his tunnel easier, but the fierce gale - which sometimes gusted hard enough to blow him off his feet - made the temperature downright intolerable. His heating charms could hardly hold up to the punishment, and the constant need to recast them only lengthened the amount of time it took to dig.

Last night, as he and Hermione had sat side by side on the loveseat in Malfoy Manor's sunroom, looking out at the stars and pointedly not discussing anything that had happened that day, burying his half of the Sun Disc beneath a mountain in Antarctica had seemed reasonable. Now, colder than he'd ever been and with no one but himself to blame for his misery, Draco questioned not only his forward-thinking ability, but also his basic common sense. Why hadn't he chosen somewhere temperate? Even the North Pole would have been wiser - at least it was nearing summer there.

He paused to flick an Engle's Extendable into the tunnel. Draco bounced from one foot to the other as the Extendable unfurled, and sighed with relief as it stopped at 389 feet. That was plenty deep enough.

He bent to open his pack and retrieved his half of the disc. A brief glance was all he spared it; he just wanted the damn thing gone and buried for good.

With a swish-and-flick, he levitated the disc, and, winding up like he was about to throw a Quaffle, hurled it into the tunnel. It sped along the narrow space, making deep clanging sounds as it came into contact with the tunnel's uneven inner surface. The sounds faded as the disc traveled deeper, and Draco had to lean in close to hear the final, resounding clang of the disc hitting its new home at the tunnel's end.

Filling the tunnel was a much simpler process than drilling it, as, with one grand, sweeping gesture, the excavated stone and dirt sped back into the hole. He compressed it with a few firm flicks of his wand, and began the complicated process of warding. He made the site Undetectable and Unplottable, Magic Dampening, Muggle-Repellent, and Creature-Proof. As a final flourish, he cast a Malfoy family ward that would send anyone but a Malfoy descendent several miles away with no memory of how he or she had arrived there.

He stepped back to survey his work, and his eyes slid right over the disc's burial location, a sign that his wards were already starting to take effect. Satisfied, Draco pulled an old handkerchief out of his pack, which he hitched onto his shoulder.

" _Portus_ ," he whispered. The handkerchief glowed blue. A second later, a strong force tugged him from behind his navel.

He landed just beyond Malfoy Manor's back veranda. The midday sunlight was too bright after the Antarctic twilight, and Draco closed his eyes against it. While waiting for his eyes to adjust, he began to strip out of his polar gear, letting it fall to the ground in a lumpy, furry pile. Once his final layer of fleece hit the pile, it vanished.

He stood still in the late April day, letting the sun warm both his body and his disposition. The sky was a perfect cerulean blue spotted with fluffy white clouds, like something out of a children's book. The distant woods, which bordered a great expanse of open field and his mother's prized gardens, were just starting to bud, the dense browns of tree limbs sparsely interrupted with pale green.

A soft pop interrupted the quiet chirping of birds, and Draco turned to find Hermione, looking rather windblown, smiling behind him. She had her hair pulled back, though several strands had pulled free. Small droplets of water glittered over her skin like stars, and Draco's heart tripped over itself. A ghost of memory must have crossed his face, because her expression fell. She walked up to him and took his hand. She rose onto her tiptoes and planted a small kiss on his cheek.

"Did everything go okay?"

He nodded. "Yes, everything went fine. You?"

"No problems," she confirmed. "No one will be finding my half."

"Nor mine."

"Is Mitchell here?"

"Not yet. I've instructed Rosie to bring him back when he arrives. We'll have him stay for dinner."

Hermione nodded. "Did you go somewhere tropical? Not to find out where you hid it," she added when Draco quirked an eyebrow. "Only your nose is red."

He smirked. "Your hair is wet. Am I to assume you hid yours somewhere oceanic?"

"No." Her lips curled into a mischievous smile.

"And no for me, too," he answered back with a wink.

Her smile faded somewhat when she asked, "Can we talk about what happened? There are still a few things I don't understand."

Draco took a seat on the grass, and she joined him, sitting so that her shoulder touched his.

"How did Mitchell know where to find me?" she began. "I've been thinking it through, and the only way he could've known we were in the Cook Islands is if you had cast some sort of tracking spell on me that sent him my coordinates. But what could you have charmed? All the clothes I was wearing were from my flat."

"Not every Slytherin scheme has to be complicated," Draco chided. "I sent him a note."

"A _note_?" Her eyes widened. "You had Rosie deliver it. Of course. But how did you know which island we would be going to?"

"I didn't. I instructed Mitchell to go to Rarotonga and wait for my signal. I'd just barely cast my Patronus before Nott knocked me out and took my wand."

Hermione's eyebrows pinched together. "A Patronus? I thought you couldn't -"

"Just because it's not corporeal doesn't mean it isn't effective," he said, a little defensive.

"I know that," she said gently, appeasing his bruised ego. "It saved my life."

Draco clenched his jaw; that he had had to save her life at all was infuriating. "What did he do to you?" he asked, though more than half of him didn't want to know.

"Same thing that happened to you. Theo's Portkey left just before mine, and when I landed, he was ready. He Stunned me and sent me spinning into the shallows. I woke up to Mitchell performing CPR. After vomiting what felt like half the ocean, I found you at the Ministry."

Draco did not want to know what CPR meant, but if it resulted in vomiting, it could not have been pleasant. Instead, he asked, "How did you know?"

"About the Ministry? Well, we knew Nott was taking instruction from the Ancients, and we knew that's where he wanted to take the half we recovered from Maru-Aten. I suppose it was a very educated guess. And about the Ministry," she said, causing Draco to tense. "I had the strangest dream last night."

"Oh?" He stared straight ahead and tried to sound casual, as if he hadn't dreamt about it, too.

"We were in the amphitheater, and everything was glowing. Everything was _connected_. There were lines of light between you and me, and us and Theo, and us and the Veil - all different colors and thicknesses, all shifting and changing, as if they were alive. The line between you and the Veil was so dark and thick. I couldn't see you through it." She looked at him, brown eyes steady and serious. "You were dying, Draco. I knew it more surely than I know first year Charms. But then, the scene shifted, and it wasn't your line anymore. It was Theo's."

Draco swallowed thickly. "That's strange."

"But it was just a dream?" she asked, both scared and hopeful.

A twinge of guilt made him want to shift his shoulders, but he stayed steady. "Just a dream," he confirmed.

She looked at him a moment longer, as if weighing the truth of his words. At last, she nodded. "That's what I thought." There was another beat of silence as she processed her new truth, then she asked, "What do I tell the Ministry? Theo killed Ptolomea, and he almost destroyed everything."

Draco bit his tongue, phrasing his next questions delicately.

"Is there any record of you, me, or Nott being in the Department of Mysteries last night?"

She shook her head no.

"Is there any record of Nott going through the Veil? Or his communication with the Ancients?"

"Just me." Her eyes widened as realization hit; Draco felt glad he didn't have to say it. "I can't just drop this," she said, stern and uncompromising.

"But you _can_ ," he corrected. "We never told Mitchell or the interns what we had found, which wraps up the Egypt dig. Mitchell knew that he needed to go to the Cook Islands, but I never told him why. And aside from you and me, there's no record that anything ever happened in Mysteries last night."

"What about Ptolomea's family? They deserve to know the truth."

"Ptolomea was murdered by a _co-worker_ , and the Ministry, instead of performing a thorough investigation, latched onto the bollocks story of her suicide, which was backed up by character evidence from a man who had _motive_ to kill her. A man who is now missing, but whose subordinate is present yet oddly mum on the subject. No, Hermione. The truth is cruel, and her family doesn't deserve to suffer any more for it."

"I'll tell them everything," she challenged, color rising to her cheeks.

"Try it," he said with a weary laugh. "Try explaining Nott's breach of protocol in communicating with the Ancients, or the Ancients' lies, or the Sun Disc and what happened when the pieces joined, or where it is."

"That's easy."

"Now try explaining it without involving _me_ ," he said, struggling to remain calm in the storm of her arguing. Hermione clenched her jaw and looked away. "You have every right to throw yourself onto the pyre, but you won't take me with you."

"You involved yourself. You could've left at any time."

He gaped at her, his anger washed away by disbelief. "Could I have done? Left you to face that maniac alone? Put you in greater danger to save my own skin?"

Her shoulders sank. Draco knew she regretted what she had said.

"I may have been a coward once," he continued, "but not anymore. I am, however, still selfish. I've worked hard to change my life into something respectable, and getting charged for murder is an obstacle I'm not sure I can overcome. Or you, for all your political clout."

" _Murder_? Draco, what are you talking about?"

"Todd. The Ministry endangered his life by failing to give you crucial information regarding the dig at Maru-Aten."

A tremor rode her voice. "That was an accident."

"That was _avoidable_ , and as Nott's dead, who do you think will take the fall for it? Then there's Nott himself: missing, presumed dead, with you the last person to see him alive." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Two people in Mysteries have died within a year of each other, and you're the last one standing. I assume the Ministry hasn't abandoned its new motto of _Accountability for All_?"

"They couldn't…" Her eyes were all uncertainty, and Draco knew she was thinking it through.

"The only thing that could support our story is the Sun Disc, and -"

"We can't let them have it," she finished for him.

Draco nodded. "There are enough loose threads on this tapestry that, if one were to be pulled, the entire thing would unravel. And for what? To shed light on the true nature of a dead man? He's not worth the trouble or the risk. No," he repeated. "This story needs to stay buried with the disc."

She said nothing, and Draco let the silence hang. After a couple minutes, Hermione sighed.

"So that's it?" she asked, sad and rhetorical. "We just go on with our lives and pretend this never happened?"

"Can you see a better option?"

Before she could answer, the veranda door opened. Draco rose to greet Mitchell. The American walked with an additional spring in his step, probably due to the enormous bonus Draco had wired into his account that morning - proof that, along with silence and loyalty, the correct amount of gold could also purchase happiness.

"Wonderful afternoon!" Mitchell exclaimed with a wide gesture, which drooped at Draco's lack of excitement and Hermione's dour expression. Mitchell cleared his throat and withdrew his wand. "To business, then, I suppose?"

Draco turned to her. "We either do this together, or we don't do this at all."

It was both an ultimatum and a fact. An Unbreakable Vow required two willing participants. Participants who were sure, to the depths of their souls and on penalty of their lives, that they would and could uphold the promise they had made. The slightest fraction of doubt would prevent the magic from binding, and the spell would fail.

He believed that silence - taking the Vow and living what amounted to a collection of lies - was the best option they had. But if she did not, then he could do nothing about it. It was her path to walk, and however desperately Draco wanted to walk it with her, he knew that some journeys had to be taken alone.

After a long moment of indecision, Hermione nodded.

"We'll do it," she said.

Draco held his breath as they clasped hands and locked eyes. Mitchell stood between them. He laid his wand upon their hands, which grew warm under the spell's nascent magic. The spell grew, began its binding, and the spring breeze picked up as golden tendrils of light twined around their joined arms.

The Vow bound them to silence as strongly as it bound them to each other. Despite what it had taken to get there, Draco smiled: a new season was beginning in more than one way.

 **The End**


End file.
